


Messes of Mice and Men

by Adrian_Nox



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ALL THE SPOILERS, AUs, Angst, Drama, Gen, Here goes, Humor, I hate romance, I'm really bad at tagging, I'm sorry but I like killing characters, Imma add to this whenever I get inspiration, No Sexual Content, No Slash, Tragedy, What-If, You've been warned, crossovers, everyone shows up but i don't feel like tagging them, i really try to hit the range of different emotions, one-shots are a beautiful thing, there will be language, this stuff starts off simple but gets better, will have violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 86
Words: 32,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrian_Nox/pseuds/Adrian_Nox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scrapbook of drabbles and one-shots in the Supernatural realm. Here there be drama, angst, tragedy, humor, AUs, and cross-overs—a motley of eccentric things…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Comparison, Cake Lacks Many a Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> Just as comment to new readers, I wanted to let you know that if you find the writing of these first couple of chapters somewhat childish and simplistic (which it is), you should skip forward in this fic. My writing has improved a lot in complexity and style. So give my latter chapters a chance before judging the quality of this fic. Shit starts to get good around chapter 27, I think. 
> 
> Oh, and there are roughly 80 chapters in this thing. I'm gonna try to post 10 a day...ish. 
> 
> So yeah...enjoy.

"Cake!"

Closing his eyes with a calming breath, John Winchester turned towards the back seat and began to reiterate exactly why they _couldn't_ have cake (that being the store was all out of it) when he made the mistake of opening his eyes and immediately getting slammed by Sam's wide puppy-eyes.

_Damn._

"I want cake," repeated six year-old Dean solemnly.

Sam plucked his thumb out of his mouth long enough to echo, "Cake!"

_Oh, God in heaven..._

"There wasn't any cake, Dean. But I got you something else that's just as good."

"What?" came the suspicious inquiry.

"It's called pie. I promise you'll love it."


	2. Tea Pots Don't Solve Everything

"Dean! Damnit!"

"What am I supposed to do?"

Sam levitated in the air for a moment before being slammed into a wall.

"It wants you to sing. Sing already!"

"What the hell am I supposed to sing?"

BAM!

_There goes the cabinet._

"Find something!" was the unsympathetic reply.

CRUNCH!

_And there goes the fine china._

"Uuhhh…I'm on the highway to hell…highway to he-"

_CRASH!_

"It's the ghost of a four year-old!" Sam roared, "Sing something it will like!"

"I'm a little tea pot, short and stout…"

Sam hit the wall with decided emphasis.

_30 minutes later…_

"Dean, you really suck with kids, ya know that?"


	3. Memento Mori

The first time it happened, Sam didn't even know. One moment the spirit had completely closed off his throat, his vision had siphoned to a thin tunnel and— _Deanhurryupican'tbreathcan'tbreath_ …

The next moment he was on the ground, deep purple prints around his neck, and Dean was shaking his shoulders while looking far more worried than he had when they started this hunt. Later, they laughed it off and Dean cracked jokes about necks being magnets for spirits and "Seriously, Sammy, what is it with you and getting choked on hunts?"

o0o

The second time it happened (at Stanford, Dean wasn't there and thank goodness cause he would have _freaked_ ), Sam only had the time to think " _shit"_ before the bullet _shrnicked_ its way into his head and splattered its way out.

He woke up four hours later in an alleyway covered in blood and brain matter, very strongly overcome by the thought, " _This is_ not _good."_

o0o

The third time it happened, Dad was injured, Dean was dying, and the doctors called it a miracle that he walked away with nothing but whiplash, a concussion, and some nasty bruises. Miracles had nothing to do with it and he could have walked away completely healed, but he had to wake prematurely to make sure those sons of bitches didn't kill his family.

o0o

The last time it happened, it was bad. Really bad. Spinal cord severed, organs punctured and slashed; he never should have turned his back on Jake. But this time, he actually got a choice. He didn't have to come back, not if he didn't want to. He could stay and the demon's plan for him could go screw itself.

(Of course, in the end "choice" was all a big joke cause Dean sold his soul and he came back anyway.)

So when Dean looked at him, face tortured, and told him "Don't get mad at me. Don't you do that." He knew it was his fault. He should have come back and damn the demon's plan for him cause his brother will always be more important than any demon. (Heaven laughed at this and ain't irony a bitch?)

"I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna get you out of this." He meant every word. Nothing else mattered. He didn't care how many times he'd have to die, if it meant going near other immortals, if it meant changing and becoming something he's not. He'd save Dean.

(Of course, in the end "choice" is all a big joke cause Dean sold his soul and any chance for either of them with a kiss and a midnight deal.)


	4. Each Day on Earth is Another Man's Hell

Dean was in hell.

Sam stared at the decrepit motel wall in front of him unblinkingly. Bobby was probably off hunting somewhere and worried to death about him but none of that mattered 'cause Dean was in _hell._

He'd tried everything. No crossroad demons, no resurrection spells, no ghosts, not even Ruby could help Dean.

Dean was in hell.

There was only one thing he hadn't done yet, one thing he hadn't sacrificed.

In the end, humanity was a small price to pay for Dean's soul.

o0o

Ruby put up a fight, but not even she had realized the sheer amount of his untapped potential. (It's amazing what you can do once you stop worrying about becoming a monster.) He drained ten more demons while a steady mantra in his head slowly built to a manic frenzy.

Dean was in hell. For _him._

Unacceptable.

His eyes shifted glinting black and he blasted the devil's gate open. All of Hell shuddered at his presence.

Peeling his lips into a ghastly smile, he turned to the demons cowering before him.

"Where's my brother?"


	5. A Day Will Come

Dean's voice hit the range of prepubescent shrimp.

"He's what?"

"I don't recall stuttering, Dean," replied John with equanimity.

Dean looked flabbergasted. Sam looked smug.

"He's four years younger than me! He _can't_ be taller." Dean paced the room, gesturing wildly. "He's only seventeen for God's sakes! I'm twenty-one. _Twenty-one!_ I can do whatever the hell I want. I can go to bars, casinos, stripper clubs..."

Sam cocked an eyebrow.

"I can _legally._ Hell, I can run for public office! He can't even _vote._ "

John swung the duffel bag over his shoulder. "You never know, Dean. Maybe you'll find the day when you're glad he's so tall. Now c'mon, we've got a ghost to kill then Caleb needs our help up north with some succubi."

Sam walked out with an airy smile fired in Dean's direction. Dean followed, sincerely promising, "gonna kick your tall ass from here to Sunday in training tomorrow…"


	6. That Day Comes

He  _really_ did not want to do this. Sam had got his soul back, the apocalypse was finally behind them, and for once everything was fine. Was just one night at the bar hanging out as brothers too much to ask?

Miles-o'-fun grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around, spittle flying from his mouth as he began his pissing contest in earnest. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, shitface. You gonna say something or are you too busy being an inbred motherfu-"

Dean was just moving to beat the idiot's face into the ground when Sam pushed his chair out and stood up. The whole bar froze into silence. The expression on the guy's face was almost comical as Sam straightened, filling out every inch of the over 220 pounds of hard muscle packed onto his broad six and half foot frame.

Sam gave a tight smile. "Please. My  _brother_  and I would very much like you to know what you were going to say."

Dean leaned back against the counter and took a casual sip of beer as he watched Idiot #56 stumble out of the bar frantically muttering apologies.

"Well, Sammy, I guess your gigantor ass has its uses. Probably keep ya 'round for a couple more years."

Sam snorted and folded himself back into his chair.


	7. If I Believe, then Lie to Me

"My brother and I are road-tripping." (Lip lick. Controlled smile.)

_Lie._

"We had  _nothing_ to do with Emily Walker's death." (Jaw clench. One-shoulder raise.)

_Lie._

"Now that's a lie. The FBI want to add this to your record, but, see, what I can't get is why'd someone like you would decide to murder a perfectly nice girl like Emily Walker."

The suspect opened his mouth to answer, then paused mid-breath and leaned back. "You really want the truth?"

"Please."

"It was a ghost. Jealous boyfriend, we think. The murders in St. Louis? Shapeshifter. God, I hate those things. Shapeshifter did the bank job in Milwaukee too." (Nothing.)

_Truth._

Dean gave a beatific smile.

Cal Lightman leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand. It was turning out to be a very interesting day.


	8. If I Should Speak the Tongue of the Angels

"C'mon Bobby. We've been at this book for hours. You've got to have found  _something._ "

"Well damned if I know, Dean." Bobby tossed the book onto the table in disgust. "I've been looking everywhere for a way to kill these damn things and this thing ain't makin' a lick of sense."

A door slammed and they both looked up to see Sam stride in from his latest run.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Tryin' to find a way to kill these Leviathans," Bobby snorted. "But the damn thing's written in Enochian."

"Can I see?"

"Knock yourself out."

Sam sipped from his water bottle thoughtfully as he perused the first couple of pages. "Looks like a history of Azrael, the angel of death. Doubt you'll get anything helpful here."

They both stared at him.

"What?" Sam said defensively. "A hundred and eighty years in hell. Michael and Lucifer weren't going to speak English the whole time."


	9. At Christmas, All Roads Lead Home

In all honesty, Sam never quite understood how holidays managed to become such landmarks for loss, depression, and sorrow for him. His birthday was a source of never-ending reminders—Dean selling his soul, Dean being torn apart, jumping into the pit, Castiel betraying them.

Even Christmas had it's share in pain. When he was younger, it was comprised of confusion and disappointment that their dad was never there, that they were never a family. As he grew older and learned what Dad  _really_ did, it became another item on the list of things this job had stolen from his family.

But Christmas also marked an important lesson—if Dad died, if demons made plans, if angels turned against him, if Lucifer came for him, if the world ended, even if he rejected Dean—Dean would never leave.

Sure, there were moments when Dean was gone, gave up, was weighted down by the sheer magnitude of  _everything_. But in the end, none of it mattered. Dean would always be there. Supporting. Joking. Protecting.

And it was this lesson he learned one Christmas in a run-down motel when he waited for his Dad and found Dean instead.


	10. A Night with Noir

"It was a dark night in a city filled with secrets. I didn't know who these two men were, but there was something about them that suggested sinister intentions."

"Dean!"

"Yeah?"

"You hurt?"

"No, but I'm tie-"

"I followed them into an abandoned alleyway. I was just beginning to think I had been mistaken, when one of them jumped me from behind. I cursed."

"- _tied_ to a chair."

"They beat me 'til they thought I was dead, but I rallied my strength and managed to get away. Barely got home alive. The broad from New York was a lifesaver. The trap caught them unawares."

"Same here."

"Yeah, well we got bigger problems."

"I've always been a lonely guy, but when Jackie came up to me and said I could trust them...ah, well. Never trust a beautiful dame."

"And what's more important than the fact we're currently strapped down by a monster obsessed with Noir?"

"Like how we're supposed to take care of Maltese Falcon here."

"Now for the the tough question. Did Jimmy send them to make sure I couldn't get to the truth?"


	11. Live Long and Never Grow Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Highlander crossover. Fun times.

He is so  _very_ old. Duncan and the others often asked how long he'd lived. Five thousand years was his reply because that was the only answer they would believe. Six thousand years, ten thousand, one million...No one could be that old.

He loved Duncan. He truly did. But in the end, there can be only one. And he is so  _very_ old.

Centuries and millennia passed and the world burned and he moved on. But he was Death and the pale rider will always return.

It was an angel that called him back. Small, whiny, insignificant little brat–wouldn't shut-up about injured feelings and the apocalypse. That was the first time he met Dean. A mortal, nothing special, not even an immortal. But there was something about him that sparked his interest for the first time in a long time.

When they met again, Dean was desperate to get his brother's soul out of the cage. Five thousand years and he had already heard every question under the sun. (He is _much_ older now.) Difficult? No. Would he do it? ...Maybe. There was something about this man. Something he couldn't quite recall. (It was so  _very_ long ago.) So he gave a challenge.

_Be me. Be the pale rider._

Dean refused to kill the girl at first. Stupid, emotional, noble with some idiotic code of chivalry created centuries before his birth—a good man. It had been so long since he'd seen a good man. Not since Duncan.

A good man. So he brought Sam back and didn't kill Dean when he bound him to defeat another angel. But he'll still reap him one day because good men are rare, but they never adapt and so they never survive.

Only one survives 'til the end of worlds and conception of another. And he is so  _very_ old.


	12. Someone Has to Pay for the Little Things

Dean had missed a lot when Sam went to college. But it was the little things that hurt the most—how Sam's favorite foods had changed, how his favorite movies had shifted, how he now reacted when threatened.

How the most innocent comment could cause an explosion because of associations he didn't know.

These "explosions" were almost always followed by a sincere "Sorry, Dean, I - I shouldn't have reacted that way. You couldn't have known."

But they still hurt so much more than the bigger things because it was the little things he  _should_ have known without being told. And he hated that he didn't because it made him feel like he was working with a hunting partner, not a brother he knew better than himself.

The most painful occurrence happened two months after Jessica's death. Dean had grabbed some food for them while they were on a case and, just like when they were kids, he got pie for himself and chocolate chip cookies for Sam. Everything was fine until Sam reached over and saw the cookies. Halting mid-sentence, he stared at them while all the blood drained out of his face, leaving him a sickly pale. Without a word, he jerked onto his feet and all but fled through the door, ignoring Dean's confused shouts of "Sam!"

It took two hours for Dean to find him sitting alone on park bench staring obliviously into space. After another half hour, Sam drew in a shaky breath and glanced sideways at Dean.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?"

"Sorry. It's just...Jess...used to cook all the time. Usually burned half the stuff she tried." Sam breathed out a laugh that had more in common with a sob. "But she knew how much I...loved chocolate chip cookies and it was the one thing she-she could make really well." Almost as an afterthought, "There was a plate of them on the counter before I...found her."

"Sam…"

"It's not your fault, Dean. You couldn't have known."

(And Dean hated it because it was the little things he  _should_  have known without being told.)


	13. Destination? The Twilight Zone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We got my older bro the 3rd season of the Twilight Zone so yeah, Rod Serling FTW...

The image of two brothers—Sam and Dean Winchester. Born to John Winchester, mechanic and Mary Campbell, loving wife and mother. Tonight is the marker for the first six-months of Sam's life. He and his four-year old brother sleep soundly in a world most find typical and commonplace. Their beds are warm and comforting, a cocoon of peace and happiness not to be disturbed by the turmoils and chaos of outer men. But for them, the paths of life will be filled with much more. An endless cycle of mystery, confusion, and danger. Survival is doubtful; victory uncertain. Today they begin their journey. Their destination—the Twilight Zone.


	14. Werewolves—Another 9 to 5 Job

"A werewolf, Sammy. A werewolf." Dean was bobbing up and down with barely contained excitement. "This hunt cannot get more awesome."

Which is to say, Sam thought it wasn't awesome at all. Sure, this was their first werewolf, but his life's blood wasn't fueled by the hunt and he could spout off twenty things he'd rather be doing right now, namely—school, english term paper, latin translation, soccer, reading, not this, more school. Unfortunately, Dad thought this was a "priceless opportunity for hands-on training" on how to properly, as Dean phrased it, "go Terminator on a werewolf's ass."

So now he's scrunched up in the back of the Impala, staring out the window, waiting for the sun to set so they can grab their shotguns, traipse ten miles into the woods, shoot the bastard, then march back another ten miles. Whoop-de-frickin'-do...

He wanted a book.


	15. But Every Time You Pick Me Up

New Years Resolutions—Sam had a few. When your last couple of years entails failing to save your brother from going to hell for you, watching him be ripped to shreds before your eyes (he came back), ditching said brother for a demon, breaking the last seal to release Lucifer from hell, and being responsible for the onset of the apocalypse… Yeah, he had a few New Year's Resolutions.

He screwed up and what he wouldn't give to go back in time, all the way back to Jake and that stupid knife. He'd drop and not die and Dean wouldn't make that deal and Ruby would have no leverage and Lucifer wouldn't appear every night in his dreams promising peace and relaxation if he just said yes. But you can't change the past. He still has his brother (that's what counts) and together they'll stand strong and screw destiny. (Right in the face.)

New Years Resolutions—Dean had a few. When your last couple of years entails failing to save your brother from getting stabbed in the back, watching him die in your arms (he came back), leaving said brother in the good charity of a demon, breaking the first seal to release Lucifer from hell, and being responsible for the beginning of the apocalypse...yeah, he had a few New Year's Resolutions.

He screwed up and what he wouldn't give to go back in time, all the way back to Jake and that stupid knife. He'd shoot that son of a bitch before he stabbed Sam and Sam would live and he wouldn't make a deal and Ruby would be ganked before she could even say a word to his brother and Zachariah wouldn't follow him spouting doom and destruction if he didn't say yes. But you can't change the past. He still has his brother (that's what counts) and together they'll stand strong and screw destiny. (Right in the face.)


	16. Death? We Plan to Live Forever

It took a while for them to figure it out, but once they did, it simplified life greatly. Once everyone else figured it out, well, there was that period when every hunter, monster, angel, and demon decided to see if it was true. But once they got it through—and in some cases literally—their thick skulls that it  _was_ true so to keep on pushing the issue was just  _asking_  for trouble, life actually became enjoyable.

Nothing could kill them. Some said it was the centuries of experience. (You didn't live that long without learning just about every trick in the book.) But most of it was just damn stubbornness. If one died, the other would move heaven, hell, earth, and purgatory to get to his brother. (It didn't hurt to be good friends with Death, either.)

As the centuries drifted by, they became figments of a breathing legend— _The_ Hunters. Wherever they went, they were omens of good fortune for the innocent and a harbinger of destruction for the evil. Dean and Sam Winchester—immortal, hunters, and above all else,  _brothers_.


	17. Not Bad, But It Could Use Some Leverage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I freaking love Leverage.

"Explain to me how this is a good idea."

"Relax, man. I know this guy. He's solid."

"He's a  _con-artist._ "

"Who cons criminals, dicks, and douchebags out of their money to help ordinary Americans."

"And where exactly did you meet him?"

"Bar fight in Massachusetts. Man, you should have been there. There were, like, thirty guys and he took this pool stick and—"

The Bitchface materialized like clockwork.

"Sam…"

"Dean, I just don't feel comfortable with this. We're trusting a group of thieves to get us into one of the most secured museums in America to snatch a very famous, very haunted, and very  _valuable_ painting so we can burn it."

"Look Sam, I  _know_  Eliot Spencer. I've met his team. They're the best. And if he says they can help us, they will."

The Bitchface retracted bit by measly bit to be replaced by the I'm-not-one-hundred-percent-confident-but-I'll-trust-you-cause-your-my-brother-but-if-your-wrong-and-we-die-I'm-going-to-kill-you-myself-face.

"Besides, this will be fun. Just wait until you meet Parker."

* * *


	18. Some Scars Remain, Always

Dean slumped in the plastic chair beside Sam's bed and occupied himself with counting the cracks in the dirty cream wall above. Not the the most gripping activity perhaps, but anything was preferable to spending another eight hours replaying the past two days contents.

It wasn't helping.

The doctor said Sam would be "fine," a little the worse for wear, but nevertheless fine. Which was fortunate, because if Sam was anything other than "fine" when he woke up, Dean would never forgive himself. He probably wouldn't forgive himself anyway, but it had take every ounce of his persuasion and conviction to make Sam forgive himself, so odds were Sam wouldn't rest until he had done the same.

But Sam was gonna have a hell of a job on his hands because every time Dean closes his eyes he sees black smoke pooling around him, feels the dull pound of his fists into his brother's face, hears his own voice laughing while Sam begs him to stop…

Dean jerked to his feet and paced the room until his hurried movements drowned out the sterile beeping. (Almost.) Why the hell did he take the anti-possession charm off?


	19. If You Show Me the Way, Maybe

Sam drifted gradually awake to the sound of reassuring beeping. A scraping noise came from his right and Dean appeared in his field of vision.

"Sammy, I'm so sorry. I tried to sto—"

"Shut-up, Dean," Sam ordered, though remnants of sleep muffling his mind combined with the roughness in his throat warped it into more of a, "Shd'p D'n." With Dean's help, he made use of the water on the side-table and reiterated, "When I was possessed, the first thing you did was to tell me that none of it was me so I better damn not apologize for something I didn't do and you repeated it every time I tried. The same goes for you, Dean."

"As I recall, the first thing I did was punch you."

"I'll save it for a rainy day."

For a moment, they glared at each other, Dean expecting Sam to change his mind and Sam's gaze challenging Dean to  _make_  him.

"Well then," Dean clapped his hands together, "That leaves only one other matter of business."

"And that is?"

"How do you feel about tattoos?"


	20. Failure is a Warm Gun Fired Long Ago

In the end, destiny lost the battle on November 2, 1983 when a demon named Azazel killed a woman because she happened to wake one late night.

Wrong place, wrong time—bad luck. Sorry.

But that death was the first domino in a thousand lined together which would topple Fate's plans.

Because that the was night John Winchester learned the truth.  
That was the night he swore revenge for the loss of his wife and his sons bereft of a mother.  
That was the night he placed Sam in Dean's arms and told him he needed to protect his brother.  
That was the night which forged a brotherhood which would be hammered ironclad and unbreakable in the thousand nights to follow.

And when shit finally hit the fan in an empty cemetery, Dean was there for Sammy even while Lucifer used Sam's fists to pound him an inch from death and Sam promised Dean that everything was okay even while Lucifer screamed obscenities from within a fragile mirror.

—It was a bond which would have never been formed but for a house fire in a child's nursery one late night.

Azazel should have never killed Mary Winchester.


	21. Death is Trivial Next to Public Speaking

All in all it made for a very awkward situation. Sure, it was fun to crack non-stop jokes along the extensively witty lines of—

_"Hey, Sam. So Death walks into a bar and sees these two Irish guys. Their names are Murph and Connor and they're brothers. One of them sees Death and—"_

_"Shut-up, Dean."_

—during which Sam showed no sign of achieving full appreciation for his well-developed humor. (Though Sam meeting a joke he actually laughed at would most likely disrupt his perfect balance of functionality and angst off of which the universe seemed to function. And considering how much effort, he and Sam put into making sure the universe continued functioning, it was probably all for the best.)

But in the end, he always got stuck back on his impending lunch date with Death and the Question of the Evening—how the hell do you make conversation with Death?

_"Hey. Reaped anyone interesting lately?"  
_ _"So, I've got some time to kill...heh. Heh heh."  
_ _"Want a pickle chip?"_

Four hours of brainstorming and several pies later, Dean had reached the inevitable conclusion—he was  _so_ dead.


	22. The Time Has Come to Talk of Many Things

Dean stared in morbid fascination as Death snagged another chip and chomped down on it. It was harder to say which was more random—Death liked pickle chips or the fact he was seated outside a diner having lunch with Death. His life was _weird_.

"You could let it happen." Death crunched into the next chip placidly.

After forty-five minutes of dead (ha ha) silence, Dean was desperate for something to break the tense atmosphere. "Let what happen?"

"The end of the world."

The one issue that had been prancing on the edge of his mind ever since Castiel had decided that knocking down the wall inside Sam's head was the perfect way to ensure peace and goodwill to all men—of course he would pick that.

"It cannot have escaped even _your_ noticed that the Earth has developed a sudden predilection for self-destruction." Death stated between chips. "Why not simply let it end as it obviously desires?"

Why indeed? Bobby would kick his ass for even thinking this, but, in all honesty, Dean had been thinking much the same for months. The thought of Bobby raked back all the defeats and losses this job had demanded from him—Mom, Dad, Sam, his soul, Jo, Ellen, Cas...and now Bobby. So much pain, so much devastation. And for what? So that a broken world could keep on ticking until it plugged it's way into another apocalypse? It would be simpler, hell, probably kinder just to let it end. After all, what did he have keeping him here?

"A final end for this little scrap of a world." Death's usual business monotone colored with a vague hint of pleasure. "Everything destroyed. Nothing left."

An abrupt " _No_ " burst from Dean's lips, startling the birds resting on the terrence next to them.

"Why not?" replied Death, unperturbed.

"Because...my brother is here." Dean paused then continued with growing passion and conviction as the full weight of his statement sank into him. "My brother is _here_. And as long as he's here...and as long as he hasn't given up...then we'll keep on going. And if that means saving the damn world again _then we're fucking well going to save it!_ "

They both lapsed into silence once more, their respected reveries occasionally broken by the punctuated crunching of pickle chips. Dean glanced around, absorbing his surroundings with an airy feeling of surprised elation. After so long...a reason to keep on fighting.

And if Death's lips carried a hint of satisfaction, no one noticed.


	23. Dawn and Dusk to Make a Day

John didn't raise soldiers—he raised brothers. Brothers who, from their skills to their very nature, complimented and balanced one another.

Dean thrived in hunting; Sam excelled in research. Dean loved guns; Sam preferred hand-to-hand combat. Dean drove because it gave him a place to stay; Sam ran because it gave him a place to go. Dean focused on the case; Sam considered the victim. Where Sam was like his father, Dean was the image of his mother. Sam would pave a road of good intentions and Dean would foresee the ultimate end. Dean could lose hope while Sam would hold on in the darkest of times.

Dean was the vessel of Michael, daddy's little soldier while Sam was the vessel of Lucifer, the prodigal son—definitively linked, definitively separated. Fate, destiny, the reflection of Lucifer and Michael's lives onto theirs demanded a battle between brothers until one emerged victor.

Lucifer almost won, did win,  _had_  won. Until he tried to force one to kill the other. But John raised them as  _brothers_  and not even the devil can force someone to destroy the very thing that makes it whole. Through blood, fire, war, and sacrifice, Dean and Sam's brotherhood had been tempered unbreakable until Dean would never let go of Sam and Sam would always believe in Dean.

(Lucifer spent two centuries in hell trying to understand, but never could—Michael would have never died for him.)

 


	24. Come Back to the End

Dean hunched over the map laid out in a dingy tent working out the Resistance's next move. The Croats had taken almost all the East Coast and were now moving with slow, but almost unstoppable strength across the rest of the states. And this was only America. In only a little over four years, Washington had been ravaged, Ireland burned into a wasteland, and Greece annihilated. Europe had fallen within six months. The angels had disappeared the day after Iran bombed an over-run Israel. Russia and China were still resisting, but the effort was ultimately useless. The only way to achieve victory was to cut off the source.

He had to kill Lucifer.

"He did it," the slightly rough cadences of Castiel's voice addressed him. Since the apocalypse had started in earnest, Castiel's grace had gradually faded to an almost imperceptible amount. Gone was the general impassiveness and curious interest in human customs which had set him apart from other angels, having given way to humanity. With this new humanity had returned much of Jimmy's Novak's mannerisms and tone of voice along with a burgeoning interest in drugs, sex, and Rock & Roll.

Not bothering to look up, Dean pulled out a city's schematics for their next raid. "Did what?" Knowing Lucifer, he probably decided to bomb every existing children's refuge.

"Said yes."

Dean glanced up, taking in Castiel's ripped and muddy remnant of a trench-coat—he really needed to get rid of the damn thing—and the dark bags hanging under his eyes. His face was impressed by a listing expression and an overall languid air about him which conveyed an air of resigned hopelessness.

"What do you mean Lucifer said—ah."

_Wrong "he."_

Truly becoming enraged was rare for Dean—if only because he seemed to spend his days in a conglomeration of bitterness, smoldering anger, and apathy—but there was a good reason it was an unvoiced rule throughout the camp that Dean's brother was to remained undiscussed or, if he must be mentioned, only titled a vague "he." As Castiel's words sank in, a deep seated rage began to boil under Dean's skin.

"Where?"

When no reply was forthcoming, he gripped the smaller man's shoulders hard enough to bruise and gritted out, "Cas, I am fucking  _pissed_  right now so answer.  _Where_?"

A glimmer of fear flickered into Castiel's eyes. "Detroit."

Dean released him with more violence than necessary and strode out of the tent. _Fuck Sam. How could he? How could he live with himself? Fucking pissed is an understatement._

He'd gone back to Lawrence and seen the devastation. Lucifer had burned the town and crucified the inhabitants, leaving only the Winchester's former house standing with an inscription which named it as the birthplace of his true vessel's powers and ordered none to touch it. Dean vibrated with sheer wrath at the memory. Lucifer had defiled his home, the house where his mother had raised him, where she had  _died_  because of his brother—if Sam had ever been his brother.

There was a time when he would have worried about Sam, protected him, even died for him. But that time had passed years ago, brutally crushed in a fight and the embrace of a demon. Now he felt only rage, not  _for_  Sam, but  _at_  him. Sam's weakness spelled near-certain doom for the Resistance.

But not certain doom because if there was one thing Dean Winchester was good at it was surviving and winning even when the whole world went to shit. So if the only way to win was to kill Lucifer, the conclusion was simple.

He had to kill Sam.

 


	25. There's Something Buried in Words

He should have seen it coming.

It was written on the books lying scattered by the wall, papers ripped. Tried and failed.

It was written on the returned phone messages spouting apologies and sympathy, never called again. Tried and failed.

It was written on Sam's face the next morning, pinched and angry, a bullet missing. Tried and failed.

"Why can't you just let me go?" he asks, but he knows the answer because it was always his job and he knows what it feels like to hold his world in his arms and scream its name while it dies.

It was written in Sam's blood, thick and pooling after the ritual he arrives too late to stop. He finds him lying in the circle, face grey and body a macabre reflection of a night in Cold Oak. Tried and succeeded.

He should have seen it coming.

(No one will make deals with a pact-breaker.)


	26. Evil Does Not Wear a Bonnet!

Cats were, Dean had decided, unequivocally from the devil. Ever since Sam had picked up that damn siamese stray, their motel had become a treacherous pitfall of tripping hazards. Ever since Dean had suggested they drown the sneaky thing, the little demon had had it out for him.

Yes, Sam loved dogs and the labrador, Bones, he'd picked up at Flagstaff when he was fourteen had been deeply loved, but at the end of the day, Dean was a dog person and Sam was a cat person, though it was certainly not from Dean's lack of persuasion.

"Dude, you've seen _Cats and Dogs_. Cats are _evil._ "

Sam cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "You're basing your prejudice on a movie we watched when we were kids."

Dean strode across the room, gesturing with sincere conviction. "It is a well-known fact that cats intend to take over the—"

Two paws shot out from under the bed, pouncing onto Dean's calves and Dean could _swear_ he heard the gremlin pipe out a gleeful, _"Legs!"_ as it snagged his jeans and sent him sprawling into the ground."

"I'm going to drown it, Sam. In the _toilet_." Dean ground out through a face full of carpet.

"Touch Lucius," Sam warned, "and I'll spike all your drinks with "performance-inhibiting" drugs for the next _month._ "

Four paws padded into Dean's field of vision. "I don't why you call him Lucius," Dean muttered, hoisting himself up, " _Lucifer_ is more accurate."

Two yellow eyes gazed up at him balefully.

He tripped statistically more for the next week.


	27. But I Keep Holding Onto You

Dean stares at the dawn—bleak and grey. It should be shaded with smoke and flames, but he didn't have the strength before and he doesn't have it now.

_"Will you let me go?"_

_"Not now,"_ he answers, but he really means,  _"Never."_

_._

Mirrors are cruel things, staring unblinking back, forcing the truth. Dean looks into one every morning and sees failure and regret.

 _"You couldn't have changed anything,"_ Sam whispers from beside him.

Maybe not, but Dean knows he should have died trying.

.

Bela dies slowly—Dean makes sure of that. Her terror is almost comical as she frantically switches from uneasy threats and bribes to blubbering pleas.

He was serious when he said he'd kill her next.

.

Bobby calls a hundred times in the next two months.

 _"He's worried about you,"_ Sam murmurs.

Dean glares at the endless road before him and clenches the steering wheel with white knuckles. Only one deal per soul, revoked or not—he never hated rules til now.

_"At least something good came out of this."_

Dean hears the relief and wishes the demon had never given him a year at all.

.

Dean was a great hunter before—he's unstoppable now. Nothing can touch him (hunter or monster), but he'd give anything to go back to he days when his soul was destined for hell and his brother was beside him.

Sam flickers beside him. _"Will you let me go?"_

When they were young, Dean always relished the power and closeness of hand-to-hand combat—Sam never did. His love was running. Every morning he'd fly across the field in a careless sprint, joy and freedom written on every feature before reluctantly returning to the cloying limits of training.

Sam always let go so easily; Dean was never that strong.

_"It's not weakness to move on with your life."_

Dean doesn't answer but they both hear the unspoken,  _"You were my life."_

_._

The dawn is stunning that day—brilliant and profound. The peace is so exquisite, Dean doesn't notice when his breathing falters and his eyes slip shut.

_"Shall we go?"_

_"Together."_

They vanish into the first rays of a glowing sun.

(And something about the still morning echoes,  _"Always."_ )


	28. Your Tears are Adding to the Flood

Sam knew something was up the moment Dean perched on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, his determined posture declaring he had a serious bone to pick.

"You've been having dreams," Dean stated flatly.

"I've been having dreams for a while if you hadn't noticed."

Dean appraised him with keen eyes and Sam's stomach clenched involuntarily, the memory of Dean's expression when he saw the blood smeared across his mouth rising unbidden to the front of his mind. "Dreams about  _Lucifer_ ," Dean continued, his expression not quite condemning, but also clearly indicating that any form of evasion would not be tolerated.

"Dean, Lucifer showing up in my dreams is nothing ne—"

"Do these dreams usually entail begging Lucifer not to snap my neck?"

Sam clamped his mouth shut, feeling rather like a deer hedged into a trap it never saw coming. "I…"

Dean's tone was clipped. "Please. Enlighten me."

It was understandable, all things considered— _all things being demon blood addictions_ , Sam's mind unhelpfully supplied—that Dean would be suspicious of absolutely any sign of reticence on his part, but that didn't change the fact that these dreams had been weighing heavily on him and all he really wanted to do was ignore them—preferable forever. Slumping his face into his hand, Sam rubbed his tired eyes and admitted, "Zachariah sent me into the future the same time he sent you."

"He  _what?_ " Dean hissed in a mass of shock and rising anger.

"He sent me to the future with Lucifer using me as his vessel," Sam clarified reluctantly as Dean paced the room, agitated, "He wanted me to the see 'first-hand' the desolation that would happen if you didn't say yes to Michael."

Sam had no idea what Dean suspected he had been withholding, but at least Dean's response to the revelation he had been sent into the future as Lucifer's willing vessel seemed to entail more rage at Zachariah than any wrath directed at him. Theoretically, this boded well for the tenuous measure of trust that Dean had extended him since he returned, but Sam couldn't shake the intense guilt knotting his stomach which stealthily suggested dreaming about snapping his brother's neck was just another step in a long line of foreshadowing which would lead him back to demon blood and betraying Dean once more.

"...and you've been dreaming about Lucifer killing me ever since."

Sam glanced down and away in shame, but a distant part of him wondered if his unwillingness to meet Dean's eyes cut his brother harsher than any response he could have supplied.

o0o

Dean leaves a half hour later, the motel unbearably claustrophobic in the expanse of his rage.

"He's dead, Sam," Dean promises before he leaves, "I don't care what it takes; Zachariah is  _dead_." But Sam can see the hopelessness growing behind the burning anger and wonders how many more hits it will take before Dean surrenders.

(Sam dreams of Jessica that night, and for once, she isn't a subterfuge for Lucifer's manipulations. He holds her on a grassy hill and remembers a life before it was marred by fire, blood, and Lucifer.)


	29. The Darkest Holes—

_"We're not stronger when we're together. I think we're weaker," Dean told Sam. (He was right.)_

Every time he shuts his eyes, he can see it. Thirty years in hell and he hadn't given up. Every painful day Alistair would start anew and Dean would laugh in his face because Alistair hadn't broken his dad and he would never break him. Thirty years of the same old same old and then it wasn't Alistair anymore—it was Sam. Sam plucked a tool from the table and Dean would scream and plead as his brother tenderly peeled the flesh from his ribs. Thirty years of holding out and he broke in four minutes. (Alistair smiled from behind Sam's face.)

He dreams of it every night since.

_"Maybe it's best we just go our separate ways," Sam told Dean. (He was right.)_

Zachariah sent him forward. "I want you to see what happens if that thick idiot you have for a brother refuses to say yes." Five years in the future, Lucifer was wearing him to the prom and Sam can see the past like it was yesterday. Every agonizing day since Dean left him (stuck to his side of the hemisphere) Sam held out against hunters, against Lucifer's lies, against  _everyone_ with the desperate hope he could prove he wasn't evil. Four years of the same old same old, then it wasn't Lucifer anymore—it was Dean. Dean crouched over him and told him that he was a monster, that his family's deaths were his fault, that they were never brothers. Four years of holding out and Sam broke in three minutes. (Lucifer smiled from behind Dean's face.)

He dreams of it every night since.


	30. —Can Still Become Home if You are There

_"You're still my big brother. When push comes to shove, you'll make the right call," Sam told Dean. (He was right.)_

Dean tried not to give up, but he already  _had_. He'd tried anger; it hadn't worked. After so much fighting and so much vain hope, the inevitable would happen. Sam would say yes one day and everything would be lost. Zachariah was right and Dean needed to fulfill his destiny. Then there was Sam—Sam who refused to give up, refused to lose faith, who would always believe in Dean. Dean looked at Sam, bloodied and dying, while Zachariah crowed in his face and finally understood that Sam was his  _brother_ and it didn't matter what he did, Sam would  _always_  believe in him. The least he could do is hold onto Sam.

(He still held onto Sam while he was beaten.)

_"We keep each other human," Dean told Sam. (He was right.)_

Sam tried not to give up, but he already  _had_. He'd tried anger; it hadn't worked. Lucifer defeated him in seconds and he was sectioned into a mirror. The inevitable had happened. After so much fighting and so much vain hope, he had failed and everything was lost. Then there was Dean—Dean who refused to leave, refused to kill him, who would never let him go. Sam looked at Dean, bloodied and dying, while Lucifer boasted in his mind and finally understood that Dean was his  _brother_ and it didn't matter what he did, Dean would  _never_  let go of him. The least he could do was believe in Dean.

(He still believed in Dean while he fell.)


	31. Laughter Can Only Dance Within Regret

Sam forgets sometimes. A hundred Tuesdays don't go by without habits being instilled and instincts rewritten. Most of the time it was humorous—

_"At last...tacos!"_

_"Don't eat the tacos!" SWACK!_

_"Dude, what the hell? You just terminated...my taco."_

_"No tacos!"_

_"Sam…"_

_"We're getting burgers."_

_"We've had burgers for the last two weeks. How 'bout Chinese takeout?"_

_"No!"_

—but then there were the  _other_  times. Sam forgets sometimes and its humorous, but he'll never forget Wednesday because no unstoppable, time-looped Tuesday could ever compare to the one day that didn't repeat.


	32. It is Uneasiness, Spreading an Epidemic

Sam never told Dean about the memory-filled twitches at the most mundane of actions, how the nightmares that tore into him at night, how he always started to stitch his wounds on his own before he remembered Dean was there, how anxiety washed over him if Dean was gone longer than an hour, or how he had to leave the motel at night because the  _paingonelosssorrowhe'sbackrelief_ was just too  _heavy_ sometimes.

_"This obsession to save Dean? Nothing good comes out of it. Dean's your weakness and the bad guys know it, too."_

_"He's my brother."_

Dean never told Sam about every flinch which instinctively reflected Sam's own, how he shook with helpless rage every time Sam jerked out of a nightmare with an oddly blank expression until he could catch sight of Dean, how he was assaulted by regret every time Sam's face filled with overwhelming relief at his presence, or how he always followed at a distance every time Sam disappeared into the night.

_"Dean's dead. He ain't comin' back. Sometimes you just gotta let people go."_

_"Please. Just—please."_

Dean never told Sam that he saw every minute and subtle flash of fear when Sam woke every morning, groggy and half-merged in a dream, asking if it was  _the_ Tuesday.

Sam never told Dean that his greatest fear was that one day he'd wake up, shaking off another nightmare, asking if it was  _the_ Tuesday...and it would be  _the_ Wednesday.

.

Four months later, Sam opened his eyes to an empty Saturday and didn't wonder if it was  _the_ Tuesday or  _the_ Wednesday because he'd just lived through  _the_ Friday and a hundred more were coming and none of them would contain Dean.

.

.

_"And like it or not this is what life's gonna be without him."_


	33. Ompa Til Du Dør (Dance Until We Die)

_Sam remembers a lot about the cage (every scream and every tool), but he occasionally remembers the overwhelming despair as Lucifer stitched him back together so they could start anew._

o0o

Said the devil to the soul,  
"Shall I slice a little farther?"  
"I don't care," the soul replied,  
"There's loss which cut me sharper."

o0o

_Sam remembers a lot about the cage (every scream and every tool), but he sometimes remembers the excruciating agony as Lucifer stripped the flesh from his face._

o0o

"I rule the pits," the devil sneered,  
"Still unsurpassed in torture."  
"I don't care," the soul replied,  
"There's loss which hurt me keener,"

o0o

_Sam remembers a lot about the cage (every scream and every tool), but he often remembers the helpless terror as Lucifer unveiled his true appearance._

o0o

"A thousand years," the devil roared,  
"I've stood unmatched, Hell's ruler."  
"I don't care," the soul replied,  
"There's loss which carved me deeper."

o0o

_Sam remembers a lot about the cage (every scream and every tool), but he mostly remembers that nothing in hell could match the pain of losing his brother._

o0o

"What was this loss," the devil raged,  
"Which crushed and made you shatter?"  
"You met him once," the soul replied,  
"He'll always be my brother."

o0o

_Sam remembers a lot about the cage (every scream and every tool), but he always remembers Dean and Lucifer could never take that from him._

o0o

Said the devil to the soul,  
"Shall I slice a little farther?"  
"I don't care," the soul replied,  
"Dean will heal me later."

 


	34. And While It Burned, Something Died

Fire took everything from John. Every night he lies in bed and glares into the ceiling because sleep means remembering and all he wants is to forget. Dean and Sam sleep in the bed beside his, but all he can see is Mary's stunned face as the fire licks around her before flowering into a liquid inferno.

Fire took everything from Sam. Every night he lies in bed and glares into the ceiling because sleep means remembering and all he wants is to forget. Dean sleeps in the bed beside his, but all he can see is Jessica' pleading face as her blood drips fiery hot onto his skin before the flames wash around her and burn everything into smoke and pain.

Fire took everything from Dean. Every night he lies in bed and glares into the ceiling because sleep means remembering and all he wants is to forget. Sam sleeps in the bed beside his, but all he can see is Alistair's gloating face as Dean finally jerks himself away from the sulfuric flames and ash of the rack before carving into the blubbering soul before him.

Fire took a lot from Sam, but it didn't take what mattered. Every night he lies in bed and glares into the ceiling because Lucifer is whispering taunts and memories of ice so cold it seared deeper than fire and all he wants is to forget. The devil sits in the bed next to him, but Dean is stone number one and stones are the one thing fire can never burn away.

And as long as Dean sleeps in the bed beside his, Sam will sleep too.


	35. Novocaine for My Soul

There is a reason they don't talk about Sam's first hunt. (It's the same reason they always joke about Sam's fear of clowns.)

_"Would you like a balloon?"_

(In. In. In. No breath. No air.)

He can't breathe, he can't sleep. (He doesn't think he'll ever sleep again.)

"Calm down, Sam. Sam! Breathe with me! Breathe with me, Sammy."

_"I am Pennywise, the Dancing Clown."_

(In. Out. In. Out.)

" _We all float down here."_

"What do you need, Sammy? What can I do?" (Dean wants to help, Dean  _needs_ to help.)

_"Be afraid. You all taste so much better when you're afraid."_

"Joke."

"What?"

"Joke about it…  _Please_ , Dean. Just...laugh about this."

They killed the son of a bitch (Sam killed the son of a bitch), but it went after him and the scars are there. (They'll always be there.)

_"I'm your worst dream come true! I'm everything you ever were afraid of!"_

"I need you to be able to laugh at this," Sam tells Dean as he trembles in his arms.

(Sam needs laughter, teasing,  _normal._ That's what Sam needs so that's what Dean will do.)

 


	36. Who We Are

"You know sometimes I just don't get it," Dean burst out abruptly.

Castiel looked askance at him, a perplexed expression materializing on his face. "Get what?"

"God. I mean, all this crap he's let happen. All the pain; people dying; bad crap happening to good people. Is there a point? Or does he just get a kick out of watching people in agony?"

"Dean, the Lord—"

"What? Works in mysterious ways? Screw the Sunday School, Cas. You can't fall back on that excuse forever."

"He doesn't work in mysterious ways."

"Come again?"

"Everything He does has a design, a purpose. We just can't see it. Asking God to explain His reason is like an infant ordering a nuclear physicist to explain the mechanics of an atom bomb. No doubt its workings appear to be 'mysterious ways,' but every component is complex and logical. The child simply cannot understand."

"Great. So God's building an atom bomb, but we can all rest reassured because his purpose is 'complex and logical.'"

"Is faith truly so difficult for you to grasp?"

"Yes. And you know why? Because out of everything I've lost—my family, my soul, Sam dying, going to hell—what was the point? So we could bring on the  _apocalypse_? So you tell me, how the hell does any of this work towards a greater purpose other than setting the world on fire?"

"I don't know."

"Shocker there."

"But I know it  _has_  a purpose, Dean. You may not see it now, you may never see it, but everything you and Sam have experienced, everything you are is part of a larger design. A good design."

"Yeah, well pardon me if I'm just a tad skeptical."

.

_Sam stood in an empty cemetery, one brutal punch away from killing his brother and the world, when he saw an insignificant toy soldier jammed into a dirty ashtray. One memory…_

_…until it triggered a thousand more, each marked by unbearable loss and filled with untouchable joy._

_(It shouldn't have made a difference.)_

(But it did.)


	37. I Can Feel a Hot One Taking Me Down

Dean was always right. Maybe it was part of being an older brother (it was _being_  an older brother), but he was right—even when know-it-all younger brothers begged to differ. It was a fact of life, bestowed upon him, by virtue of being the oldest, and Dean had always reveled in it.

He was older. He was right. Argument closed. The end.

But now, looking at the despair etched onto Sam's face, Dean wished Jack Montgomery hadn't changed. Because Sam needed this. Sam needed  _it's your choice_ and  _you don't have to become a monster_ and  _sometimes you're wrong, Dean._

Dean wanted to be right (right about yellow-eyes, right about Ruby, and demons, and psychic powers), but he wanted even more (even less) than that.

He wanted debates about action heroes.  
He wanted petty sibling fights settled by wrestling on the bed.  
He wanted simplicity easily decided by an indisputable, "Cause I'm the oldest and that means I'm right."

Dean wanted many things ("right" among them), but at the end of a day, driving on a forsaken road with his tormented brother, he just wanted to be wrong.

And he wasn't.

 


	38. The Most Resilient Parasite

Castiel has not walked among men in over two thousand years, but even then, he had not been able to understand. Vibrant joy he could comprehend, with rage he sympathized, doubt he knew of (angels have fallen because of doubt and it is one thing Castiel will never feel), but rebellion? Rebellion, he cannot understand, because it is not possible to ever truly rebel. Not against destiny. Some things were written and they would always happen.

Which is why Sam would fall. And Castiel does not understand why Dean cannot see it.  _Stop him or we will_ , but he does not truly believe Dean will try. Because demon blood pumps through Sam's veins (Castiel watched, unseen, as Azazel gloated) so surely Dean can understand that Sam must be stopped and that can only be done if Sam is destroyed.

 _Stop him or we will_ , but Dean says nothing—only looks. Castiel's declaration that Sam is a liability hangs heavy in the air and Dean  _looks,_  expression intense with repulsion, concern, and determination. But underneath it all, Castiel can see the glinting undercurrent of  _he's my brother_ and _I'll never hurt him_ and  ** _try me_** _._

Castiel leaves undeterred, but Dean's look ( _try me_ ) remains, hovering in his mind until it has planted a seed of emotion (not joy or rage or doubt).

He thinks it might be fear.


	39. Free to Be Mostly Me, Sort Of

Dean hated witches. Hex-your-ex-boyfriend witches, save-the-ozone-layer witches, even the Wicked Witch of the West (the bitch was out to get him and he knew it), Dean  _hated_ them.

He hated body swap spells even more.

"Look, man...Bobby says the spell will last for a couple of days so we're just gonna have to ride it out."

Dean stared in detached fascination as Sam paced back and forth within Dean's body. Compared to the vantage point Sam's height provided Dean, Sam looked  _really_ short.

"Dean!"

"Huh?"

"You with me?"

"Uh. Yeah." Dean glanced back down at himself, trying to accustom himself to Sam's longer frame. Getting back to the motel had been an absolutely nightmare. Sam had adjusted pretty quickly to Dean's shorter stature, but Dean's trouble in doing the same became immediately apparent when he attempted to swing himself into the driver's seat and instead slammed his head into the door frame.

The next half hour had rivaled a slapstick comedy as he proceeded to trip over his own feet multiple times, walk into a pole he failed to notice (Sam's hair was particularly floppy that day), and misjudge the length of Sam's longer arms, resulting in, as Sam eloquently phrased it, "trying to open the door with your face."

Crossing the room cautiously, Dean plopped down beside Sam who was gazing at his hands with a dissatisfied countenance.

"What?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing." Sam sighed, morphing Dean's features into that of a pensive drunk (which led Dean to conclude he'd look like a wasted bulldog if he ever attempted to replicate Sam's puppy eyes once returned to his own body.)

"Well, cheer up, Sammy," Dean tried slap Sam's shoulder and narrowly avoiding smacking him upside the head, "At least you'll be able to pick-up women effortlessly and enjoy the benefits of my unsurpassed athleticism."

Sam contorted Dean's face into a constipated expression.

"Dude, are you trying to pull a bitch-face?"


	40. Through the Stain Glass of My Mind

Sam explained it to him once (things were clearer then), but Dean hadn't been able to understand what he meant. He'd tried at first, but then came the lies, the secrets, the betrayals, and all he could remember was his own overwhelming failures as Sam left with Ruby.

Sam stood in front the Impala, grateful and earnest for Dean's change of mind, every expression promising,  _"I won't let you down."_

Dean hated witches, but this one showed him something he couldn't comprehend before.  _("I have demon blood in me, Dean. This disease pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean.")_  Swapped into Sam's body, every conscious thought and emotion condensed into a maddening itch. His blood was scratching through his skin with anxiety until he tried to rip the veins from his arm.

Sam couldn't look at him after Famine (too much guilt), but Dean hadn't been able to blame him for the blood. He'd tried at first, but even with the lies, the secrets, the betrayals, all he could remember was the his own overwhelming urge for  _blood_.

Sam lay in the panic room, shaking and exhausted after another detox, every expression wondering,  _"Why don't you hate me?"_

 _"Because I understand,"_ Dean answers.

And maybe that didn't fix everything. But it came close.


	41. Your Name is Trapped Beneath My Tongue

They didn't talk much afterwards, at the hotel—nothing left to say. Not this time. (Actually, there was. And that was a problem.)

Too much say, no way to say it, and the room was screaming with unspoken words.

"So, I've got a possible case in Illinois. Four people killed in the past week, all behind locked doors, no sign of forced entry." ( _I didn't mean it.)_

"So, Casper, the not-so-friendly ghost?"  _(I meant it, but not like that.)_

"Looks like."  _(I wish I hadn't changed when you were gone.)_

"Sounds good. We'll head over tomorrow."  _(I wish I hadn't left you alone with a demon to watch your back.)_

"Right, then. I'm gonna get some sleep."  _(I have to kill Lilith.)_

"I'm gonna, uh, stay up for a bit."  _(I can't trust you anymore.)_

There was a beat of silence.

"Kay. 'Night, Dean."  _(I love you, but I can't stop now.)_

 _"_ Goodnight, Sam."  _(I love you, but I can't forget what you've done.)_

_(I'm sorry.)_

_(I know.)_


	42. A Glass of Acid for Your Burning Throat

Dean remembers a lot about the pit. Forty years of torture—you don't just forget that. But what he hates the most, why he really wants to carve Latin runes inlaid with holy water into Alistair's liver, is because Alistair twisted him until he enjoyed it.

Alistair found Bela. She was there, curled up in a corner, whimpering with wide eyes until Alistair dragged her with hooks onto the rack.  _Shall we begin?,_ Alistair purred into his ear and Dean remembered how she shot Sam and led Gordon to them both until he didn't shudder at her agony, until he thrived.

Peeling strips of her tongue, forcing to her to laugh at the taste of her own intestines, scalping her into a writhing mass (Alistair never had a better student)—every moment sent thrills of perverted joy along Dean's spine. He halted once (didn't wanted to admit the control brought him pleasure).  _But it's got to be nice to take it out on someone who hurt you and your dear Sammy,_ Alistair murmured into his ear. From then on, Dean carved with relish and became something he wasn't.

Forty years of torture—but that is the moment he remembers clearest because that was the only moment that mattered.


	43. Cause I Said I'll Never Let You Go

He comes to Sam every night in his dreams.

But never with surroundings of muted shrieks and bloody fire, never threatens, maims, or tortures, never lies. (Sam wishes he would.)

He usually appears on a fresh, crisp day—brilliant lake, pristine sky. (It all looks like a damn Hallmark card.) Sometimes he talks, just relaxed chatting— _I prefer white to the other colors, though I suppose its technically not a color. Just the absence of color. You?_

Most of the time he doesn't. He just sits companionably next to Sam on a sturdy dock and appreciates the stunning view. And every night, before he leaves, he asks Sam to say yes and every night Sam tells him to go to hell and every time he smirks and shows up the next night anyway. Each night  _every_  night and Sam just wants him to conjure a razor and carve deep and give justification for the obscenities Sam hurls.

But he never does. (And Sam kinda thinks that's the point.)

Sam  _hates_ him for it.

Dean's gone and Sam's alone. (And he knows it's what he deserves.) Every morning Sam wakes fuming, but every morning the rage slowly trickles away until empty numbness is all he has left.

(He almost finds the lake peaceful now.)

.

"Why'd he say yes?" Dean demands, bile staining his mouth.

"He was alone," smirks Lucifer from behind Sam's face and relishes the corresponding flinch.

"You manipulated him."

"No."

"Then how?"

"It was easy." (He is the prince of lies, but the truth hurts so much more than any falsehood.) "I was  _there._ "

.

Dean's return floods Sam with relief, but mostly hope because,  _finally,_  the empty numbness is gone and everything he does can be overshadowed with,  _You won't regret this._

They work the cases. Dean doesn't say much, but Sam knows his brother better than anyone and every day Dean's expression carries the undercurrent,  _I'll never leave you, Sammy._

_I think white is crueler than black. So much cleaner. So much purer. It's always the righteous ones that leave you in the end, right, Sammy?_

But Sam isn't alone anymore.


	44. Until the Rain Steals Away

In another life, Azazel never bled into Sam's mouth.

Mary lived, John and Sam didn't butt heads (much), and maybe Dean would never sell his soul for Sam and Sam didn't really get his brother most of the time, but they were a family.

And they were happy.

John died eventually—heart attack—but his sons made something of themselves (one a budding lawyer, the other the best mechanic in the state) and Mary couldn't have been more proud. Two years later, Sam married a sweet girl named Jessica while Dean met his match in a spunky nurse he loved with a fiery passion no one else could match.

They died eventually (everyone does), but it wasn't in fire, or blood, or deals. It was peaceful, quiet, in warm homes with family and the completion of full lives.

Dean saw this world once and chose to leave it. (It wasn't real, but existence is relative anyways, and Dean could have chosen a dream purer than any reality.)

But he still lies awake at night and wonders why fate demanded they could never live a normal life.


	45. And Dark Was Splashed Across the Wall

In another life, Dean never made a deal for Sam's soul.

Bobby walked back from chasing Jake and saw Dean, eyes  _(Sammy)_  warped with agony, rocking his broken brother.  _Lose one and lose them both,_ muttered John to him ten years ago and Bobby doesn't know what to do back at the house when Dean coils himself around Sam, arms wrapped tight and Sam's lax head tucked into the groove of his shoulder.  _Sam_ is the only word Dean will whisper and every letter carries  _you're my brother_ and  _i'll always take care of you._

For days Bobby coaxes— _Dean, maybe it's time...you're breaking my heart, kid—_ but Dean only stares at the lifeless corpse and breathes out  _Sam._

Bobby knows what is coming  _(lose one and lose them both)_ when he strides out the door and he knows it has come  _(Sammy)_  when he strides back in and finds Dean curled around Sam, everything painted in splatters of red.

There are still whispers in the room, in the deep crimson and dark grey, echoes of  _sorry_ and  _i tried_ , but mostly  _Sam (you're my brother, i'll always take care of you)._


	46. Blacker Than Your Eyes

In another life, Castiel never saved Dean in time.

Sam flipped the switch when Dean died and tore Lilith to shreds with more passion than anything else had every inspired in him—except saving Dean. Because six months and one Wednesday told Sam exactly what he was willing to sacrifice to get Dean back. ( _Everything_.)

No one understands just how massive that ticking bomb Sam carried was until he strides into hell, eyes glittering black, and crushes any demon  _(take your time, Dean)_ who tries to interfere while Dean pours every ounce of his anguish and ingenuity into showing Alistair  _(I've dreamt of this moment, so I got a few ideas)_  just how much he learned on the rack.

It takes several years (hell-years) for Sam to establish order in the pit—a demon faction won't stop spouting incessant crap about the apocalypse and Lucifer. But Sam is the King of Hell and Dean is more skilled with a razor than Alistair ever was. (Dean's eyes ripple black now.)

A man with bright eyes and a trench-coat which doesn't prevent the purity from wafting off him appears a month later, to the demons' intense horror and Dean's intense annoyance.  _You are not desired here,_ Sam informs him,  _The breaking of the seals has been stopped._ The man stares at the brothers, shoulder-to-shoulder with twin blackness staining their eyes, and leaves in a flutter of wings.

They don't see him again.


	47. Take a Step, No Care for Where It Falls

_"You know," commented Sam from behind his laptop, "There's a theory that for every possible choice we make, there's a parallel world."_

_"Sure. Parallel worlds. And make sure you keep an eye out for the cyber-men," snarked Dean in reply._

_"Seriously? We do time travel, but you think alternate universes are too extreme."_

_"Only with angels."_

_They both paused._

_"Well, Cas?"_

_"Yeah. And did you encounter any Daleks while visiting Earth 2.0?"_

_"I am not aware of the existence of any parallel worlds."_

Dean had gloated, Sam had maintained the possibility, but Castiel simply vanished in a flutter of wings and visited worlds coated in blood and fire. Worlds where Dean never made a deal, Castiel didn't save Dean, and Azazel never chose Sam. So many choices, so many deviations from fate's path, despite what the angels say.

Castiel can see them each, if he wishes, and destiny really is a fragile thing.


	48. All My Life—

_"Sloth,"_  Alistair hums as he carves a new pattern into Dean's skin in every restless dream,  _"Not the physical kind. That's not how you...roll. I'm thinking more of the spiritual. It's why you broke inside when dear old daddy didn't. It's what's gonna break you deeper every morning when you wake up, Dean."_

It's been coming for a while, this despair. He doesn't know if he can put an exact moment when it began, but Dean thinks it might have started when his dad made a deal he shouldn't have made and Dean ignored a reaper he shouldn't have ignored.

 _"Can't trust, can't hope, already dead inside. Really, Dean,"_ purrs Alistair's thick murmur just beside his ear, " _It was only a matter of time before you would let yourself enjoy torturing inside the pit. Everyone breaks eventually, but you...you didn't even know what faith means."_

Dean wakes up every morning and goes through the motions because, honestly, he doesn't remember what it's like to feel anymore. The world has dulled into shades of grey  _(I wish I couldn't feel anything)_  and Dean doesn't think he can fight any more, not after Sam  _(I'm not all here, I'm not strong enough)_ , and maybe he should just say yes  _(I'm tired of fighting who I'm supposed to be)_.

 _"You're still my big brother. When push comes to shove, you'll make the right call,"_ Sam asserts, not a shred of doubt on his face as he un-cuffs his brother from the bed.

Dean walks into the room believing he'll say yes, but now Sam is curled onto the ground, coughing globs of blood onto the floor while Zachariah shreds his stomach from the inside. Here comes the moment of truth and Michael and destiny. Til Dean glances at his brother and realizes just how much faith Sam has in  _him_ , despite the apocalypse, despite  _everything._

One wink and sword thrust later, Zachariah lies amidst two wings of ash and Dean is staggering under Sam's weight, but he's got his brother next to him and for the first time in a  _long_  time, the gaping emptiness he's carried for years has been filled.

 _"Screw destiny. Right in the face. I say we take the fight to them and do it our way,"_  says Dean.


	49. —Is Wrapped Up In Today

_"Wrath,"_ muses Lucifer as Sam hurls himself against a mirror, pounding furiously,  _"Your deadly sin, your achilles heel. Dean always thought it was lust for power or maybe pride, but you know better, don't you, Sammy?"_

Sam slumps against the brick walls of his mind, head bowed, trembling with exhaustion and doesn't answer because it's true. Everything—every choice _(I know what it's like to want revenge)_ , every step  _(Lilith's head on a plate, bloody)_ , every decision  _(I've been waiting for this)_ which brought him to this point had been made out of uncontrollable anger.

 _"I know what it's like to feel rage too, Sam,"_ Lucifer murmurs at the edge of his mind,  _"My father claimed to be a God of Love, but all he ever showed me was wrath. I learned it from him."_

Sam curls into a corner and tries not to listen because rage was all he had left when Dean died, rage was all he had to cling to when Dean returned, broken and shattered, and when it mattered, his wall of rage only held out for five seconds against the force of Lucifer's will.

 _"Sam, it's ok. I'm here. I'm not gonna leave you,"_ Dean stutters through a broken jaw and bloody teeth.

Lucifer pulls back his fist for another blow, determined, unstoppable, but Sam still remembers that toy soldier and the memories pour in, streaming, powerful, overwhelming, flowing over stones and crushing Lucifer's barricades.

Sam caresses the memories, some liquid bright, others murky deep, as they wash over his mind, into the recesses of his soul. Lucifer screams in disbelief, slamming himself against the wall surrounding him _,_ but it's not built with wrath anymore. There's only  _painlaughgonelossjoybrothers._

Only  _Dean._

And nothing Lucifer does will ever shatter it.

 _"It's ok, Dean. It's gonna be okay. I've got him,"_ says Sam _._


	50. Sometime Around Midnight

"How would you survive without us, Bobby?" Dean asked him once with a cheeky grin and his feet propped on a desk.

"Happily and with no worries," Bobby had grouched back, but he won't remember that right now because he doesn't want to recall how Dean's hazel eyes could charm women with a single glance across the room or how Sam's face would appear unbearably young when filled with carefree laughter.

Every dawn Bobby walks into crisp air and stands in front of a worn cross. (They were brothers and the idea of two crosses is blasphemy.) For hunters, graves are superfluous mockery, but Bobby needs something to drag him through the day, and even a wooden monument is better than nothing.

.

"I'm looking for Sam Winchester, Bobby. I know Sam's a friend, but it's him or the world, so I suggest you tell me where he is."

There was a day when Bobby would have been pissed. He'd have grabbed his gun and blown off the head of any hunter with the balls to threaten in him in his own house.

Now he just snags another bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and plunks himself down behind his desk.

"He's dead," Bobby states bluntly and pours himself another glass.

"Don't toy with me, Singer," Gordon Walker snarls, each syllable taunt with tension.

He's too  _tired_ to do this, to explain what happened to a obsessed hunter who just wants to kill Sam anyway, so he just gazes into the barrel a sawed-off shotgun and tries to muster the energy to give a damn about any of it.

It must have reflected in his eyes because Gordon lowers the gun.

"How'd he die?"

"Doesn't matter. He's dead and he ain't comin' back."

"Where's Dean?" asks Gordon, curious.

Bobby snorts, but its really more of a sob. "Where do you think?"

.

For the first time, he's starting to feel just how  _old_ he really is, noticing aching joints and the painful scars from years ago.

He quits hunting.

And a lot of hunters panic. After all, Bobby's been back-up for years, filling in as FBI, Homeland Security…

"I'm out of the game," is all he'll say and he hangs up when they start to argue.

There's talk of demons and seals and something big coming, but survival is overrated anyways. The whole world went to shit years ago and the only two people with enough sheer tenacity to save it died on a cold night in South Dakota.

.

"We require your assistance," says the man in a trench-coat.

"Get in line," Bobby mutters and that bland phrase captures every bit of his apathy, hopelessness, and  _I don't give a damn anymore._

Hunters drop by now and again to pick up books or research a case, but Bobby always walks out to the scrapyard because he can't bear to recall the times _they_ dropped by for help. Sometimes the house itself becomes too painful, too touched by memories, but, more often than not, it's the little things that hurt the most.

"I haven't said 'idjits' since  _them_ ," Bobby murmurs dully, before he realizes he's spoken.

"What?" inquires the man's rough voice, but the words have already faded into the biting cold.

The man departs the next moment with the muffled sound of wings and Bobby stands alone, watching the midnight sky.

.

He hates sleep. It was never peaceful to begin with, but now he wakes every morning wishing he could just put a bullet in his head and be done with it. (He doesn't know why he hasn't already.)

Night, darkness, and sleep are a swirling cacophony of an agonized  _Sam_ screamed across the street, a bloody stab wound which crushes Bobby in loss and disbelief, Dean's wracking sobs as he gently rocks his brother, and a bullet which cracks the silence two days later.

 _God's going to punish you,_ whispered his horrified mother and after so many years of dreading that promise, he thought it had finally arrived when he had to stare into the black eyes of his beautiful wife while he shoved a steak knife into her chest.

Not really.

Bobby never knew pain until he had to stack a pyre for his boys, his sons.

(He always knew he had a good reason for not wanting kids. Just not the reason he'd thought back then.)

He drowns the world in whiskey every day and most of the time he doesn't see two cold bodies curled around each other, everything painted in deep red.

.

"Bobby Singer."

It's been two years since he chased Jake on a cold night and muddy street, but the flames of a pyre have seared into Bobby's memory until the face of the man who killed two brothers by stabbing one has become indelible. This time there's an aura about him which suggests it's not Jake who's talking anymore.

"You want something or are you just here to waste my time?"

'Jake' chuckles softly, white teeth gleaming. "Most people would be more polite when the devil shows up on their doorstep."

"Whoop-de-freakin'-do. Now do whatever the hell it is you're supposed to be doing or get the fuck off my lawn."

"Just paying my respects to someone a friend mentioned. Jake is impressive, but apparently Azazel had his money on a different horse. Still," he continues after a moment, "It's no matter now. Enjoy your whiskey."

Lucifer leaves him alive, much to his surprise, but, in the grand scheme of the apocalypse, Bobby doesn't suppose his life would make that much of a difference anyway.

.

"The apocalypse. It's here, Singer! It's coming," Walt's voice is panicked over the phone.

Bobby slumps back into a beaten chair, old and  _tired_ , and takes another swig from a chipped bottle.

"It's been coming for a while, boy."


	51. In Silence You Paused

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, thanks to a prompt I got a while ago requesting that I write some stuff about Death. Yeah. It was a thing that I started. And kept going. And going. Anyways, what started as a prompt mutated into its own universe. Namely entailing that Death and Fate are siblings and generally spend their being sarcastic bastards with Dean and Sam, while occasionally helping and/or taking an interest in them. It fleshes out better the more you read.

Here they are at the end of the world (again) and Ally of the Year Award is definitely going to Death, who, for reasons yet unknown, has volunteered once more to aid them in their endeavors.

Sam is off collecting the final ingredients for the ritual which leaves Dean to bounce on his toes with restless energy, a stark contrast to Death who is remaining completely still, hands clasped placidly around his cane.

"So…" Dean decides Jet Li vs. Chuck Norris is a safe topic, but what actually comes out of his mouth is, "Why the hell are you helping us this time?"

Death unfolds his hands and fixes Dean with the expression of someone trying to decide if he wants to eat the legs of the unfortunate frog he's just caught or if he is feeling generous enough to let it go.

After a few moments (most of which consisted of Death looking like a rattlesnake about to pounce and Dean thinking,  _Shit, he's going to kill me._ I  _would kill me. Shit, shit, shit…_ ), Death returned to his former position.

"My sister. She finds you amusing."

_Well, that makes sense—wait, what?_

"Your sister?" asked Dean incredulously.

Death shifted imperceptibly. "Fate."

_Of course..._

_Naturally._

"Your sister is Fate."

"Yes."

The image of the bookish Librarian with a definitive stick up her ass standing next to a withered and cynical Death pops into Dean's mind. He's having a hard time reconciling the two images.

"Yeah, she's, uh, quite something, your sister. Very... _dedicated._ "

"You have never met her."

"We met her when—"

"You met Atropos, one of the three fates. You have never met Fate _._ "

No response really seems to do any of the whole "Death and Fate are siblings" topic any justice, so Dean sticks with, "So, um - what is she like?"

It's the first and only time he ever hears Death laugh. It's a rasping, mockery of real laughter, ending almost as soon as it begins, and it sends Dean's skin crawling with unease.

Behind them, a door slams, heralding Sam's return.

"What is she like?" Death repeats, amusement tinting his voice as he swings his cane nonchalantly and begins to stroll back towards Sam. "It would be regrettable if you ever actually found out."


	52. One Day We Will Break Like Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second in The Old Ones 'Verse.

_Hello, brother._ _I've been waiting for you._

_Still a child,_ he observes, noting her young, whispish form,  _Your three 'lackeys' have been complaining about Sam Winchester's rebellion._

 _Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were rigid and unbending when I offered them the gift of foresight_ , his sister laughs, dark hair shadowing her thin face,  _They have not changed since then. The twists and bends of humanity remain a mystery to them._

 _It has been planned since Lucifer's fall_ , he replies and the scythe rotates in his hands,  _The petty brat has bound me to his will._

 _God and angels plan many thing_ s, she murmurs before flicking her violet eyes away,  _But there is only path this world can travel. You know how to free yourself._

 _Is it time for the end?_ he says after a moment, but he's actually asking, _Shall we leave this world?_

He is old (older than angels, older than memory, maybe older than God) and he has been Death for  _so_  long. He wonders what it would be like to shed this form like a worn cloak, forget what it means to be Oldest, to watch this world burn and become young once more.

She wishes it too, he knows. It is a terrible to thing to see the world for what it is and it reflects in her unblinking gaze.

 _No,_ she finally answers (this world has not run its course) and the weight of eternity sinks back onto his shoulders.

It has been a long time (longer than time), but he can still remember the moment they crawled from the maw of the Great Pit and watched the stars rain down and burn the oceans with fire.

But that was before a great many things.

(Before Pestilence, War, and Famine gazed up at them and asked for power to end the world. Before Lucifer fell into earth in a blaze of whiteness and twisted a human child into the first abomination. Before they ceased to be the First Ones and cloaked themselves as Death and Fate.)

Still, the world will burn one day (not now, but soon) and when that day comes, they will leave. They will mold supple clay into a new world and finally become someone other than the Old Ones.

(But not for long.)


	53. We Are an Orchard of Mines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third in The Old Ones 'Verse.

The First Ones stand on the first shore and watch a star hurtle downwards into the sea, bursting the sky into a thousand flames.

 _Do you think we'll ever see anything more beautiful?_ his sister asks.

 _No,_ he answers,  _I do not think so._

o0o

He finds Famine first, a withdrawn, maddened human filled with insatiable desire.  _Never underestimate the will of your opponent,_ he lectures and watches with pride as Famine spreads agonizing emptiness wherever he treads.

Pestilence is crueler than the others, but he is more gentle than any lover when he fills a garbling woman's throat with pussing sores.  _It will be beautiful, the end,_ Pestilence whispers dreamily,  _the world covered in sickness._ Death smiles, but the world will only end as it began. In fire.

He loves War the best. So young, destructive, and violent. Death plucks him from his village, nothing but a child ruled by fury, and teaches him. He would show him everything, things to marvelous to comprehend, but War is too impassioned to truly learn.  _This recklessness will defeat you one day,_ he warns, but War only laughs and begins a genocide in Syria.

o0o

 _Power,_ demand Famine, Pestilence, and War.

_And what will you do with this power?_

_We will end the world,_ they reply.

 _(I need something from you,_ he tells her, _Rings for the Horsemen. Filled with power to destroy this world._

 _Oh,_ his sister laughs,  _Is that all?)_

o0o

 _We are brothers,_ Pestilence says as they slip on their rings.

 _We are immortal,_ gloats Famine, withered and thin.

 _We cannot be stopped,_ and War dances around, twisting the world into illusions.

Death flexes his finger, the ring redundant and useless. He was ancient before they came and he will grow more ancient still.

 _Come, my brothers,_ Death says,  _Shall we show the world what we can do?_

They are so young, these three children, and he waits for the day when he will reap them all.

o0o

Lucifer falls in a burning comet, pure light washing the dark sky into brilliance.

Every ending has a beginning and this is it. Lucifer contorts the purest child into an abomination and is bound within a cage for his blasphemy.

 _(The angels have asked the three fates to weave a thread for the apocalypse,_ she notes, eyes glinting with amusement,  _What will you do?_

He stares out at the ocean and remembers the flickering beauty of fire.)

o0o

The time of the apocalypse is growing near. In a few years, Azazel's first stage of preparation will be over and he will drip his thick blood into the mouths of innocent children.

 _(You remain young,_ he remarks.

 _I have always appreciated irony,_ she replies, weaving around him, light and quick,  _A boy was born today. More unyielding than War. You would enjoy him._

Nearly sixty thousand souls to reap in Asia. He leaves.)

o0o

Every time they meet, Dean is saving something. First the world, next his brother, once a mutated angel whose ego was only surpassed by the number of leviathans clawing beneath his skin.

Always trying to save someone or something, because that's what Dean does.

Death thinks it's because it's the only thing Dean ever truly learned.

It's the sixth time he has agreed to help them when Dean finally asks for a reason.

 _My sister,_ he answers.

He really means,  _My sister was right about you._

o0o

Sam Winchester's soul is screaming when he plucks it from the cage, raw and shredded in his grasp, filleted to a point far past agony. Frankly, he is surprised that it's still contains any shimmer at all. Anyone else's light would have been burnt out within moments, overwhelmed by the brilliance of Lucifer's true form.

But Sam's soul is not only shining, it's  _gleaming_. Despite the burning flames seared deep within, its burnished radiance still pulses cool in his hand.

He builds a wall in Sam's mind as he promised Dean, but he doesn't think it will last long. Not because the wall itself is weak, but because the Winchesters have proven to be too important in the scope of eternity to ever receive a respite.

As he thought, the wall breaks within six months, but Sam doesn't break with it. When he sees the brothers next, Sam is barely standing, his mind scarred with fire and hallucinations. But through the shattered fragments of the wall, rippling light is streaming out, soothing the weariness in Dean's spirit with its own glistening warmth.

 _(It is beautiful, is it not?_ murmurs his sister.

Death has never seen a soul shine brighter.)

o0o

Dean is magnificent and broken. This galaxy is insignificant, humanity entirely irrelevant, but this child, this child is emptier than Famine, fiercer than War, and more gentle with a razor than Pestilence could ever be, even with a thousand plagues.

He pulses with sheer, unbending potential and Death wants to show him the coiling muscles of a python as it slides around its prey, the flickering beauty of a comet when it dances in his palm, the threads of a million decisions knitting themselves into a resilient cord Fate weaves into her shadowy hair. He would pour knowledge and truth into this broken child, then stand back and watch as he lights the world with his brilliance.

But Sam's soul gleams brighter than anything Death has ever seen and Dean will never leave it.

o0o

Sam and Dean die one day. The world burns the next.

 _A soul which burned brighter than Lucifer himself and another who refused to let its brother succumb to the Cage,_ he muses,  _For that, it was worth the time spent here._

 _I saw them from the beginning,_ she tells him,  _Their light burned across time._

The First Ones stand on the last shore and watch the oceans toss waves of fire in a frenzied maelstrom.

It's more beautiful than either of them remember.

 


	54. Whose Hands Command This Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fourth in The Old Ones 'Verse

Dean honestly didn't know what he was expecting Fate to look like. Maybe a sexy, mysterious bartender. Probably a withered old lady staggering around as Death supported her on his arm. Definitely  _not_  a twelve-year old child.

For weeks Death had been popping in to make vague comments about how his sister was going to "drop by" and warning, "don't be your usual arrogant self; it will annoy her," end result being that Dean was beginning to regret he'd ever agreed to take a case in the first place.

Neither he or Sam hunted much anymore. In Dean's opinion, they'd payed a hundred times over for any crap with apocalypse through numerous years of hunting and saving the world. He was more than content to relax the sturdy, if slightly worn, cabin he shared with his Sam. Cementing the decision to retire was Sam, who, despite his claims that he was coping with memories of hell just fine, continued to zone out quite often and occasionally seized during his sleep if a nightmare got particularly bad.

As it was, Sam was currently two states away recovering from a cold, while Dean had opted to take care of a standard ghost hunt as a favor to an older hunter. He usually visited the local bar after completing a case anyways, but the freezing rain slamming down onto the pavement made the idea of a warm beer seemed even more desirable.

He had just settled in at said bar when a slender, wispy girl appeared next to his elbow and promptly clambered up into the seat next to him. Her intense and distinctly un-childish stare was beginning to make his stomach crawl, when he connected the dots between creepy-child-of-the-year and Death's recent intonations of doom.

"I take it you're Fate," he observed, after a long draught of beer.

The unblinking stare remained. "Yes."

"Fuck off."

A disturbing grin materialized on her face. "Only on Tuesdays."

While Dean occupied himself with cleaning up the mouthful of beer he spewed out, she reached across and snagged a beer from another man who ignored her actions as if he hadn't seen her. The bartender who had previously been eyeing him appreciably, turned away from both of them while every passing customer and waiter began to give them a wide radius.

"So," Dean inquired, his composure regained as she gulped down half the beer in one swallow, "Can anyone here see you? Or are you just here for my benefit?"

"I don't expect he really looked at me," she replied, momentarily lowering the beer, "Most people don't."

"Why not?"

She slammed the now empty bottle onto the table and swiveled so that she was fully facing him. "Tell me. Would you look at me if you had the choice?"

For the first time since noticing her in his peripheral vision, Dean  _truly_ looked at her and immediately had to force himself to continue as every hunting-honed instinct he possessed began screaming furiously.

Although she was a far cry from being as withered as Death, something about her small frame was marked by an almost severe thinness, emphasized by the thick, shadowy hair outlining her thin face and flowing onto her shoulders. In an obscene contrast to her wan face, her irises were colored a violet so deep it was nearly black. Her eyes were slightly  _too_  large compared to the rest of her face and they seemed to flicker everywhere at once except when pausing, as they did now, on Dean in an unblinking gaze.

In his first cursory glance, he had placed her around the age of twelve, but closer examination suggested that fourteen was a better approximation. The longer he stared at her, however, the more it became apparent that it was impossible to discern her actual age. Her terribly  _knowing_  expression would have been an abomination on a child.

She snapped her eyes away and Dean released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He gagged at the sudden bitter taste staining his mouth.

"Case in point," she commented pleasantly.

"Why a child?" Dean finally managed past the rising urge to hurl, "Why choose to look like a child?"

"I appreciate irony."

She cracked each of her knuckles while Dean focusing on regaining his composure.

"Feeling better then?" she smirked after a few minutes.

Dean clenched his jaw in anger. "You know what? You can go fuck yourself," he spat out, "My brother spent a hundred and eighty fucking years in  _hell_. All because of you and your fucking apocalypse."

She glanced askance at him. "It wasn't your destiny to start the apocalypse."

"The angels thought so," Dean snarled.

"Exactly. It was your destiny to have the angels  _think_ you were supposed to start the apocalypse."

"That still counts as fucking my family."

"Contrary to popular opinion," she murmured, leaning her face inches away from the bar as she started etching symbols into the wood with her fingernail, "I don't decide what happens."

"But you're  _Fate_."

"Exactly."

Rage gave way to confusion. "But then how does freewill and destiny - ?"

"You should try not to think about it."

"Do you know everything I'm about to say?"

"I try not to think about it."

Dean sighed and massaged the back of his neck with one hand, suddenly drained. Just one night. Was just one night off too much to ask?

"So why are you here?" he questioned in a resigned voice.

She gouged a bloody fingernail viciously into the wood. "My brother won't shut-up about you."

"You broth— _Death?_ "

There was a hummed affirmative.

"Death won't shut-up about me," Dean repeated skeptically.

Before he could speak any further, she launched herself towards his neck, stopping with her face inches away from his jugular. Dean froze, his whole body rigid. Inhaling deeply, she ran a finger lightly across his skin then sank back into a chair, licking her forefinger thoughtfully.

"He's right, at least partially," she declared after another prolonged taste while Dean stared at her as she had lost her mind, "You have potential. Though I will say," she remarked, beginning to pick splinters out of her ripped fingernail, "I've always preferred your brother more."

Dean jerked sharply, hand instinctively reaching behind him for his gun. "Sam? What the hell does he have to do with this?"

"I appreciate irony."

"Answer the damn question. What does he have to do with this?"

To his surprise, she began to laugh uncontrollably, rocking back and forth in her chair. "Don't you get it?" she gasped between peals of laughter, "Millennia of intricate planning, all so Lucifer could have his little spat in Sam's meat-suit. He completes every step the angels demand from him  _perfectly,_ all the way to the edge of the apocalypse _,_ only to shove the devil back into his cage. Then as an added eff-you, he comes  _back_ , sanity still intact. Well,  _mostly_ intact. The angels planned his life out since the beginning of time and he fucks them over anyway. Of course I like him," A fresh grin appeared on her face, "As I said, I appreciate irony."

"This is a joke to you?" Dean demanded angrily, "Our lives? We've lost people! People who mattered!"

Her eyes narrowed into glinting slits, but her voice remained deceptively pleasant. "Ah, the arrogance. My wonderful, gullible, so  _easily_  ripped limb from limb Dean... _everything_ is a joke to me. Now," she continued as Dean fidgeted beneath the table, "As diverting as I find this conversation, there are other places I need to be."

"Leaving so soon?" asked Dean sarcastically, "No words of wisdom before you go? Meaning of the universe? 42? E = mc2?"

"E doesn't equal mc2," she replied blithely, sliding off the chair.

"You know," Dean blurted—and honestly, why couldn't he shut his damn mouth for once and just take the free pass?—, "Your brother said I should hope I never truly understand what you are."

A curious expression crossed her face and she cocked her head, locking eyes with him once more. This time, however, there was no mesmerizing glare. Instead, a glazed sheen that Dean hadn't even realized was cloaking her eyes melted away.

The passing waiters along with the surrounding conversations stuttered to a halt.

Her eyes reflected so many things—galaxies woven together with shimmering cob-webs, brilliant flickers that dance chaotic patterns too complex to comprehend, a heavy road coiling so long only two can foresee its end.

Her gaze whispers about  _old_ and  _knowing_ and for the space of a moment, Dean can see  _everything_ and the weight of it is tearing him apart.

Then she blinks and everything slams back into it ordered chaos.

Dean gasped and collapsed limply against the table, weakly clawing at the edge of the table to prevent himself from falling to the ground.

"Yes," she murmured with satisfaction, "My brother was right about you."

Without another glance, she snapped her fingers fingers once and stepped into empty air.


	55. This Pit Inside Bears Me to the Ground

He wasn't going to be able to kill her. He could bluff his ass off all day, but Emma could see it on his face—he just wouldn't pull the trigger. Which was rather what she was counting on.

Tightening her grip on the knife, she began to step forward when the motel door slammed into the wall and the other hunter, the  _brother,_ barreled into the room, gun pointed directly at her heart.

Her tribe only mates with the strongest, the most successful. They can't always discern which potential mate is the best candidate without making small talk, but they sure as hell can tell which ones are the total nut jobs and even she can see that Sam Winchester is nine different flavors of crazy.

"Please don't let him hurt me," she pleaded, glancing frantically between Dean and Sam and noting with pleasure Dean's parental instincts flaring automatically. Relying on his conflicting impulses to delay him, Emma turned her focus on Sam.

The art of reading a man's eyes was one of the first things they were taught and Emma had learned it well. She saw the exact moment Sam realized that Dean couldn't shoot her, that she would use that advantage to kill him, that Dean was going to die.

In the space of a second it all clicked in Sam's mind and that light vibration which denoted an unstable mate shifted into a buzzing scream.

And for that the brief space of second, the screaming was so loud she thought the heaviness which slammed her onto the ground was a meat-hook.

Everything froze into a colorless picture as she collapsed limply, eyes staring into the ceiling. In the distance she could vaguely sense Sam stepping around her body, urgently asking if Dean was hurt.

The last thing to drift across her mind before everything morphed into shapeless grey was that it was very peculiar how the buzzing vibration of meat-hooks and agonized shrieking faded away when Dean assured Sam he was okay.

 


	56. Are These Sounds in Bloom With You?

Claire misses her father. She does.

She remembers how he would help her with math and hum her to sleep when she was frightened.

But since that night in an abandoned warehouse, everything has been dominated by an aching emptiness where there used to be burning light and a soundless voice.

Claire misses her father.

She misses Castiel more.

o0o

When Claire is sixteen, the world ends.

Life shifts into seamless days and each one is filled with survival and frigid silence.

"What do you want from me, Claire?" her mother demands.

That night, Claire grabs a few clothes, a knife, jerky and water and leaves.

There's talk of a camp run by Dean Winchester and she remembers how Castiel whispered that he would always follow Michael's true vessel.

o0o

"What happened to you?"

"Humanity," Cas drawls back at her, downing a few more pills, "It's what you get for rebelling against the might of heaven. Least I get drugs and women."

"Is my father still with you?" she demands.

"No."

"Then where?"

"Heaven, I would imagine," he remarks, flippantly. When she doesn't reply, he continues, "What are you doing here anyways?"

The emptiness that's been building inside her since he walked away explodes into fury. Seizing him by his shirt, she slams him as hard as she can up against the cabin wall.

"Why did you leave?" she snarls, inches from his face and knocks him against the wall, emphasizing each word. "Why. Did. You.  _Leave?_ "

A somber expression crosses his face and for a moment, she can sense the old Castiel.

"He asked me to, your father," he tells her, softly.

"Why would you care what he asked?"

"It was the right thing to do."

Claire releases him so abruptly, he half-topples over.

"It's empty without you," she whispers, voice cracking.

"I'm sorry," Cas murmurs.

She walks out of the camp and doesn't look back.

o0o

It was stupid to leave the camp. Wandering into a hot zone was just asking to get your ass killed. All in all, it's her fault she's stuck with a wall to her back and nearly twenty Croats swarming at her front.

Clenching her jaw, she readjusts her grip on a knife and prepares to go down fighting.

The next moment, the Croats collapse on the ground, a bullet-shaped hole in each of their heads. Which is definitely odd considering there was no sound. No gunshot crack, not even the pop of a silencer. Nothing.

The only person left standing in the alleyway is a boy, no more than fourteen, his body at that awkward, lanky stage where each of his limbs slightly  _too_ long.

It's just her, a bunch of Croats dead from gunshot wounds and no bullets, and a boy with a shy smile and feathery brown hair which falls too far over his eyes.

He stalks up to her with quiet confidence and an odd, careless grace.

"Hi," he says, holding out his hand, "I'm Jesse."

o0o

Claire is eighteen when Dean Winchester dies and hope dies with him.

"I'm strong enough now," Jesse says, "We could leave if you want."

Claire remembers math lessons and humming and a brilliance which made everything else seem grey.

Jesse offers his hand to her, the same grin he flashed at her nearly two years ago lighting his face.

And for the first time since that night in an abandoned warehouse, she doesn't miss Castiel.


	57. Of Spells and Snarky Brothers, Part 1

"I blame you."

"How is this  _my_ fault?"

"Let's just get a couple of drinks, you said. It'll be fun, you said. Maybe we'll find some hot chicks. Never mind the fact that guys have been mysteriously going missing from that bar for  _weeks!_ "

Dean looked on, slightly bemused as Sam continued to pace the room, ranting furiously.

"I mean, did you lose you  _goddamn mind?"_

"Don't you think you're being a tad emotional over this?"

"Emotional? _Look at me!_ "

"Look, Sam," Dean reasoned as Sam resumed his attempt to wear grooves into the floor, "Bobby says the spell is going to wear off in a couple of days. And anyways, how was I supposed to know the bartender was a witch in her spare time?"

Sam plunked himself down on a chair, fiddling sullenly with his now long, flowing hair.

"Besides," Dean continued, "I don't know what you're so pissed about. You look stunning. I always said you'd make a fantastic girl."

There was a light swishing noise and Dean dropped, barely dodging the silver knife which came flying at his head. Peeking his head up cautiously, he looked from the quivering knife embedded in the motel wall back to Sam who was now rummaging through a bag for his gun.

"Er," said Dean, tentatively clearing his throat, "Is there anything I can get you?"

Sam gazed darkly at him, a fresh projectile twirling in his hand. "I want chocolate.  _Now._ "


	58. Of Spells and Snarky Brothers, Part 2

"We're going to need a room for the night," Dean told the clerk, a thin, mousy man who was looking way to perky for someone who worked in a run-down motel in the middle of nowhere.

"One queen, I presume?" beamed the clerk with a cheery grin.

"What? Uh, no.  _No._ Two twins, please," Dean laughed nervously while, on his right, Sam stared at the clerk with an expression of abject horror, "This is my br- _sister_ , Sam."

"Sam," the clerk stated, looking skeptically at Sam's distinctly voluptuous frame.

Dean flashed a winning smile. "Short for Samantha."

With an unamused growl, Sam pulled him away from the desk.

"Dean, what are we doing here?" he muttered under his breath.

"What do you mean what are we doing here? We're laying low like you wanted."

"I wanted to lay low at Bobby's, not some skeevy motel. I keep getting eye-groped by every creep we pass in this place."

Dean stared in disbelief at the light blush tinting Sam's cheeks. "Dude, are you  _shy_?"

Sam shifted from foot to foot awkwardly. "It just makes me feel...uncomfortable."

With a sigh, Dean glanced at Sam's currently gorgeous, thick hair and curvy body. "Well, what do you expect me to do, Sammy? The witch did a good job with the spell." His face abruptly lit up with an evil grin and he placed a hand on Sam's shoulders with an expression of mock sincerity. "But I can promise as long as you stick with me, I'll ensure your virtue remains intact."

"Your keys, sir?" offered the clerk brightly, apparently unfazed by the judo throw Sam was attempting to use to hurl Dean out the window.

Extricating himself from Sam's hold with some difficultly, Dean reached over and deftly plucked the keys from clerk's hand.

"Pay her no mind," he said, leaning confidentially towards the clerk, "It's just that time of the month." He smiled blithely at Sam. "Right, darling?"

Sam gave a tight smile and hooked an arm lovingly around Dean's while simultaneously jamming his heel down onto Dean's foot as hard as he could. Ignoring Dean's grimace of pain, Sam began to drag his limping brother out to the car with a pleasant, "Shall we get our things, brother dear?"

"Was that really necessary?" Dean demanded when they got to the Impala.

"Yes," replied Sam smugly.

Before Dean could complain further, two passing teenagers gave a long whistle and yelled, "Hey baby, I'd tap that," as Sam bent over to grab his bag.

"Dude," Dean snorted as Sam straightened stiffly, "You just gave a bitch-face. A  _literal_ bitch-face."

Sam huffed in irritation and shifted the bag onto his shoulder. "You owe me  _so_ much chocolate for this."


	59. I am Folded, and Unfolded, and Unfolding

Hell is forgetting who you are. John is a hunter, the man who watched his wife burn alive because of a demon with yellow eyes. He is obsessed with revenge, afraid that his youngest son will be harmed if he goes to college, and he loves his two boys more than the blood that pulses through his heart.

He is a Winchester so he makes a pact to heal one son and save the other. For a hundred years, Alistair carves him with gleeful relish, but his eyes will never ripple black no matter how long he is trapped because he is the father who went to hell so that his two sons could live.

John knows who he is and when he climbs out of the pit, he finds his boys one more time and searches for Mary among the stars.

-0-

Hell is forgetting who you are. Dean is a hunter, the man who watched his brother die in his arms because of a demon with yellow eyes. He lost his mother, idolized his father, raised his brother and he sleeps with women he'll never love because he knows he'll be dead before fifty.

He is a Winchester so he makes a pact to heal Sam and save himself. For thirty years, Alistair carves him until he stepped off the rack, but his eyes will never ripple black no matter how much he enjoys the torture because he is the brother who went to hell so that his baby brother could live.

Dean knows who he is and when he is pulled from the pit, he finds Sam and begins to be Dean once more.

-0-

Hell is forgetting who you are. Sam is a hunter, the man who watched his brother be ripped apart before his eyes because of a demon with white eyes. He is Lucifer's true vessel, the bringer of the apocalypse, Azazel's chosen, the least of humanity, and he carries a taint which has killed everyone he's ever loved.

He is a Winchester so he says yes to the devil to save Dean and finish what his family began. For a hundred and eighty years, Lucifer burns him until nothing remains, but his soul will never be truly extinguished even when  _Sam_ is gone because he will  _always_  be the brother who jumped into hell so that his big brother could live.

Sam forgets who he is, but that was never his to remember in the first place and when he is pulled from the cage, Dean finds him and teaches him how to be Sammy once more.

 


	60. Before the Taking of a Toast and Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fifth in The Old Ones 'Verse. Set immediately after "Whose Hand Commands This Thunder."

It had been a long night. And that was putting it mildly.

Dean tramped into the motel room, impatient for the icy rain to die off so he could get out of this damn town. If he didn't take a single case for the next year, Dean decided, it wouldn't be too soon.

"You're not dead," observed Death from behind.

Dean jumped, narrowly avoiding stabbing himself in the eye with the knife he was about pack. "Don't  _do_  that!"

Death examined him with a critical expression that made feel Dean was back feel like he was back in Mrs. Grady's fifth grade, sporting a black eye and torn shirt while she cross-examined him in front of the whole class.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Your sister...er... _stared_...at me until I almost passed out. I've got a migraine the size of Texas."

"Yes. She informed me," commented Death, circling around until the bed was between them, "Apparently you made quite the impression.

"Yeah, well I'm just full of surprises."

"So it would seem."

"So you're sister just dropped to let you know she went Jedi mind-stare on my ass?" asked Dean skeptically.

"She is aware of my interest in humans whose minds aren't fried to a crisp by a glimpse of eternity,  _yes,_ " Death replied in the tone of voice which suggested Dean's level of intelligence had dropped below that of rock's, "She thoughtfully took the time to share your 'very diverting conversation' before going to meet Sam."

Dean froze. "She's with Sam  _now?_ "

"Has been for several hours."

"Take me there."

Death pinned him with an icy stare. "What makes you think I can?"

"I know you can."

"Very true. What makes you think I  _would_?"

"Because…" Dean floundered helplessly. The usual threats of, "You will or I'll shove a stake dipped in acid down your throat," seemed somewhat useless and counterproductive in this situation.

Before Dean could brainstorm up a slightly passable reason, Death circled the bed to stand beside him. Raising his hand inches from Dean's face, Death snapped his fingers and everything blinked away.


	61. L-I-F-E-G-O-E-S-O-N

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sixth in the Old Ones 'Verse

The benefits of travelling with Death was that you didn't get the same, cramping, disorientated side-effects that came with angel-zapping. Dean suspected that if he mentioned it to Death, he would receive a veiled look of irritation and the clipped explanation that, "angels are far too young to have grasped the necessary finesse."

Nevertheless, the sudden change of scene from a crappy motel to the living room of his and Sam's cabin threw him off balance. And when his momentary confusion combined itself with the scene that awaited him in the living room, Dean barely managed to avoid an undignified collapse onto the floor.

It wasn't that he was expecting the immediate surroundings to be devastated or Sam to be cowering in a corner, muttering to himself, but the idea that Fate would be peering at Sam with creepy intensity while Sam furiously worked the scar on his left hand seemed, for all intents and purposes, like a safe bet.

Apparently, safe bets weren't all that safe today.

Sam was sitting on the edge of an armchair beside the lit fireplace, head bent intently over a pad of paper as he meticulously sketched with one of the numerous drawing pencils, erasers, and watercolors which were scattered across a low table. Beside him, Fate was curled up on the couch with a sketch book from which she would occasionally look up in order to lean over and give pointers and corrections to Sam's drawing.

At least, that's what Dean presumed she was doing. Their murmured conversation was taking place in a language he couldn't understand and which he was decently certain 99.99% of the rest of the world couldn't understand either.

To his additional surprise, Sam appeared more relaxed than he had since, well,  _ever._ His brow was furrowed as he redrew a line, but his expression was peaceful and content behind the single-minded focus. There were no blank stares, uneasy shifting, or glancing at empty corners of the room which declared the presence of Lucifer or God-knows-what in the corners of his vision.

Even Fate had changed since Dean last saw her a few hours ago. It was still painfully obvious that she was anything but human, but that terrible thinness, which had dominated her entire face before, seemed to have filled out. She looked less like an ageless being crammed into an emaciated child and more like something other than human choosing to manifest as a young girl.

Regaining his composure, Dean strode over to the couch, ignoring Sam's surprised, "Dean," and bluntly demanded, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Dean, we were just talking," interrupted Sam in a confused tone of voice.

Fate bent further over the book, the furious sketching not missing a beat. "Really, Dean," her voice drifted over the pad, "Where did you think I was  _going_  when I said I had other places to be?"

Behind him, Dean could sense Death moving to stand beside the mantlepiece to calmly rest his hands on his cane.

"You never said anything about Sam."

"His soul is brighter than yours," she muttered as if that explained everything. Before Dean could respond, her head snapped up, eyes locking onto Death's face with unblinking focus. Complete silence reigned in the room while they looked at each other.

Dean had the distinct impression they were having a detailed conversation beyond words and thoughts which he was just too limited to pick up.

A wide grin spread over Fate's face as if Death had made a witty comment. "Yes, you  _would_ think that. This is for you, by the way." She grabbed a blackened, crack rock which had been resting on the table among the pencils and toss it at him. "For nostalgia's sake," she explained then returned her focus to her drawing. She snapped out a hand in Sam's direction. "Pass me the green, will you?"

"More shading right?" asked Sam, handing her a green pencil.

"Shading is the  _key_ ," she affirmed and started humming  _Happiness if a Warm Gun_ under her breath.

Dean stared at her incredulously. "Are you even the same person I talked to three hours ago?"

Her only response was to chew on the pencil thoughtfully then shrug as if the question had nothing to do with her.

Death offered the unhelpful addition of, "She is a very multi-faceted individual," while intently studying what Dean thought was possibly the most exceptionally uninteresting rock he'd ever seen.

"You should have a seat, Dean," suggested Sam, momentarily glancing up from his drawing.

Dean barely restrained shooting his brother an irritated glare. Nevertheless, he reclined back on the couch, albeit as far as he could from Fate who merely gave him a beatific smile from her end of the couch.

Propping his feet onto a clear space on the table, he had almost fully relaxed when a thought occurred to him and he jerked up. "Damnit! I just realized the Impala is still at the motel."

"No, it's not," Fate interjected before he could rant further.

"That's not very reassuring," Dean remarked hesitantly. "Where is it?"

"It is currently en route here, courtesy of the hunter who asked you to take the case you just completed."

"How would he even know where we  _live,_ let alone what motel I was staying at?"

"A farmer tripped over a rock in the 15th century," was the cryptic response.

Dean decided to just leave the whole topic alone. Sam was being his predictably nerdy self without,  _thank goodness_ , any brutal commentary from Lucifer; Fate and Death were in the house for who knows  _what_ reason, but neither of them seemed to possess any hostile intent; for the moment, everything was  _good_ and it had been a  _long_ day.

Fate began to hum  _Hey Jude_ under her breath and Dean allowed the soothing warmth of the fire and the quiet scratching of pencils on paper to lull him to sleep.


	62. A Voice Like a Riot With Every Revision

Dean leaned tiredly against the wall.

After driving hours into the night, Sam had finally found an abandoned house for them to stay in. Upon arrival, Dean had immediately dragged himself upstairs, unable to bear the conglomeration of despair, anger, and pleading on Sam's face. He wasn't that surprised when, a couple of minutes later, the front door slammed shut, signaling another one of Sam's increasingly frequent runs.

_Whatever you do...don't die._

Dean snorted and took another swig from Bobby's worn flask.

Right.

 _Sure_.

Because honestly, how did Sam expect this all to end? Dean had seen the minute flinches, the hesitations before speaking, the way Sam's eyes drifted to the side, tracking something only he could see. Dean was tired and it was only a matter of time before the other shoe inevitably dropped with all the subtlety of an atom bomb.

A breath of wind breezed through the room. Dean glanced to side, expecting to see the bedroom window cracked open. To his elated surprise, it was closed and frost was slowly crackling across the pane.

"Bobby?" he asked, hesitantly.

The minutes ticked past and Dean's hope drained away.

"Only breeze. Only because you wanted it. He's not here," he muttered, settling himself back on the ground.

"Yeah, ya idjit. It's just the ghost of Jacob Marley."

Dean snapped his head up and almost cried at the sight of Bobby, leaning against the opposite wall, pale arms crossed.  _You shouldn't have stayed_ warred with  _I haven't known what to do without you_ , but what came out was the cracked whisper, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Bobby. We should have saved - we could have—"

For goodness sakes, boy," Bobby interjected gruffly, re-materializing in a crouch before him, "What do you want us to do? Sob in each-others arms and have a sharing session? So I died. Life goes on."

"You shouldn't have stayed. You should have moved on."

"Yeah, well it's a good thing I did or you thick-headed buffoons are gonna get yourselves killed."

"We're fine," Dean muttered past the tight lump in his throat.

Bobby snorted. "Yeah, Sam's got Lucifer banging around in his grapefruit and you've resigned yourself to getting killed on a hunt. You're just  _peachy._ "

"Sam's fine," asserted Dean, "Stone number one and all that."

"And exactly what  _is_ stone number one?"

"Pain," Dean waved his hand vaguely, "It feels different here than in hell. Allows him to tell the difference between reality and hallucinations."

"He's hallucinating and you're okay with that?" Bobby asked in disbelief, his image wavering with anger.

"No, but, damnit, Bobby!" Dean jerked to his feet and began gesturing furiously, "You're  _dead_. You're dead and Cas is dead and Sam's slowly going guano and I don't know how to stop it and, damnit, I'm tired _._ I'm  _tired,_ Bobby."

One of Dean's discarded boots levitated and smacked him in the head hard enough to cause bright lights to burst around his vision.

"Then do something about it!" Bobby roared, the temperature dropping several degrees, "The world's ending. So what? You don't have to fix the damn world! You just gotta fix your brother!"

"Oh, and how am I supposed to do that?" Dean shouted in return, "He knows stone number one. He can use it!"

Bobby growled in frustration. "Pain isn't stone number one, ya idjit.  _You_ are."

There was a heavy pause as Dean absorbed his words.

"I know you boys are gonna take care of this Leviathan problem. Until you do that though, you gotta take care of each other. Sam doesn't need pain or hunts to keep the devil clear from reality. He needs you to be there. And as long you focus on just 'being there,' you ain't gonna feel like the whole world is crushing down on you."

Below them, Dean heard creaking as Sam strode back into the house.

The frigid air warmed and Bobby flickered in front of Dean. "Now go take care your brother, ya idjit."

 


	63. Listen to the Tone and a Violent Rhythm

It had only been a matter of time before the other shoe dropped, but that didn't make it any easier when it finally did.

Sam was shaking in a corner, gouging his thumb into his left hand with a desperate intensity, and his almost prayerful, "It's not real. He's not real. Not real, not real, _not real_ …" had Dean inches from hurling his most recent meal onto the dirty carpet of the motel they were staying in.

But the luxury of throwing up would mean leaving Sam and Dean wouldn't leave Sam  _ever_ , but he neither could he get close because every time he moved towards Sam, the endless litany of, " _Not real_ ," would transform into a sobbing, "Not him, you said you wouldn't be him anymore, anyone but  _him_ ,  _Please._ "

It had been days since hallucinations had replaced reality and almost twelve hours since Sam had started screaming, refusing to allow Dean to approach. Sam was still curled into himself, his terrified shaking punctuated by slight whimpers and an awful keening noise which, Dean remembered with a sickening wave of nausea, was rather what screaming sounded like when a your voice box has been sliced out.

The other shoe has dropped and he was almost out of ideas.

Almost. But not yet.

It was a simple enough solution, really. If Sam was stuck in hell, Dean would enter his own to find him.

"When Alistair first appeared," Dean began quietly, "I thought I could resist him...but he wore me down. It's what hell does. It wears you down til you can't figure out what's real, what's not. They make you carve lessons and words into your own stomach until you can't tell if what they whisper on the rack is a lie or what you actually believe… But - you - you can still know.  _You can still know_."

The violent shaking began to steadily subside as Sam slowly peeked his head out from behind his tightly wound form.

"Alistair loved to flay the skin off my back while mocking me with your voice. Sometimes he'd even stop - stop the torture so I could watch you scream and plead for help while he dissected you in front of my eyes." Dean forced himself to continue through the rigid tightness in his throat, "There's nothing good in hell. They can only take good things and twist it," he took a shaky breath, "Which is why - when I look at you and see you fighting and laughing and killing any sons of bitches that come after me, I know you're real. - Cause they can't fake that. They could never fake you _._ "

"Dean?" asked Sam hesitantly, voice rough and cracking as he finally saw _Dean_ and only Dean for the first time in days.

Dean managed a smile and - when did tears start coming down his cheeks?

"You got out, Sammy," he promised, " _We got you out_."


	64. Within the Gravity of Tempered Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7th in the Old Ones 'Verse. Listen to 'Dead Island Trailer' music while reading.

It is empty, down below. Cold and endless, so they crawl, on and on, til they stand beside the liquid fire which slides around the pit.

 _What are we?_ she asks.

 _We are alive,_ he replies,  _and we will live forever._

o0o

Every moment is a dance they weave through falling stars and flickering lights.

But every glimmer fades.

 _I wish they would not die,_ he admits so she bathes her hands in warm lava and fills a fading star with breathing fire. It burns fierce and angry as she hangs it to light the darkened sky, searing her eyes until they are cracked and bleeding.

With a light touch, he brushes a living star, watching it crack and ripple into a deepened silver which he pours on her empty gaze. When it has stiffened and cooled, he peels it gently from her eyes. The two remnants of this former star rest lifeless in his hands, one a blackened rock, the other a silver orb which shimmers iridescent.

 _This destruction is mine,_ he breathes and tosses the shining disk into the night to glisten among the stars.

 _What can you see?_ he whispers, for a moment afraid.

She caresses the scorched stone he discarded on the ground and when she glances back at him, her violet-black gaze declares,  _E_ _verything._

o0o

_This world will not endure for long. Should we remain?_

_I have seen the end,_ she assures him,  _and it is beautiful._

o0o

New creatures prowl on this soil, sliding through rocks and grass. His sister strokes one gently, finger rippling through gobs of blackness.

 _What are you?_ he wonders, amused by their aimless chaos.

 _We are hungry,_ they respond with maniacal glee, but when they touch him, they die.

o0o

 _Can you see the end?_ Pestilence demands while she spins circles around him and his brothers with twisting words.

 _It is magnificent,_ Fate laughs and disappears before her brother's pets can ask for more.

o0o

When he visits his sister's pupils, Lachesis is measuring thread with wearying regularity and Atropos is obsessed with tally and balance.

But Clotho, the youngest, eyes shining with life, approaches him with the hesitant question,  _Will you reap us some day?_

This girl weaves brilliant threads from the sparks of the sun his sister breathed into flames, so Death answers truthfully.

 _Yes_.

o0o

This world is lit by their sun and moon and they will never give it up until fire sweeps the soil hard and clean once more.

 _Humanity mocks your power,_ argues Lucifer, rage and desperation seeping into his voice,  _Aid me against my father and brother and this world will be yours._

He refuses and it is only when Lucifer has been bound within the Cage does he murmur,  _It has always been ours, little angel._

o0o

 _A thread,_ the angels request,  _A thread for the apocalypse._

 _Have not Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos already done so?_ she inquires.

_They carry much power, but they do not posses yours._

_Very true,_ she agrees,  _but I will not._

_Why?_

She fingers two golden threads plaited through her dark hair.

_Because I have already woven a story and these strands will never be broken, however you may try._

_This world will burn,_ snarls another.

 _Yes,_ she responds, lithe and cunning, _but it will be by our hand, not yours._

o0o

 _Does it hurt?_ asks the child, pulse faltering and sluggish.

He smiles gently,  _Why would it hurt, child?_

_Everything hurts...It hurt when you took Sammy._

_Remaining behind hurts. Leaving never does._

And when the raspy breathing stutters to a quiet halt, he tenderly places the soul beside its brother.

o0o

 _Do you remember?_ she asks, handing him a scorched rock nearly as ancient as themselves.

When he first touched this star, he could only shatter and destroy. Now he molds it into a breathing world, filled and pulsing with life, and places two souls upon it, watching them reunite joyfully with many others—a young blond with a sweet smile, an old hunter who was a father in all but blood, an angel who once wandered astray, and two others, one who died on the ceiling of a nursery and one who made a pact to heal one son and save the other.

 _I am glad you kept it,_ he states as she cuts the two shimmering cords from her hair and threads them through this new-born world to hang it among the stars.

o0o

 _It was a beautiful story,_ she reflects as they stare into the crisp dawn.

 _Come,_ he says,  _Shall we finish what we began?_

They wash the earth in rivers of flame until nothing remains but cool rock and fiery seas.

And every moment of the devastation is magnificent.

o0o

 _What are we?_  she asks.

 _We are old,_ he replies,  _and we will grow older still._

She gazes up at the last star in the fading sky.

_I wish to drink the sun._

He takes her hand in his and promises,  _It is ours to drink._


	65. Til Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8th in the Old Ones 'Verse. Set an indeterminate amount of time after "L-I-F-E-G-O-E-S-O-N."

"Tell me a story," Sam requested softly.

In the corner, Dean was curled up in an armchair, a quilt half-spread over him. Weeks of non-stop worry combined with almost no sleep had finally overcome him and he had been persuaded into sleeping beside the warm fire with the assurance he would be the first to know if there was any serious change in Sam's condition.

Fate glanced up at Sam from her relaxed pose on the floor and took in the sweat plastering his long hair to his forehead and the heavy lethargy which weighed down his limbs and was only disturbed by the occasional jerk from a rattling cough.

Dean had refused to admit it, still denied it even now, but it had only taken one look at her somber expression when Dean helped him stagger back into the cabin for Sam to understand that the doctor's apologetic prediction was inevitable.

"A story," she repeated thoughtfully.

"To pass the time...while we - wait," Sam explained between strained puffs of air, tactfully choosing not to mention what— _who—_ they were waiting for.

"Once upon a time," she began and Sam breathed out an incredulous laugh.

"Once upon a time?" His were eyes languid and half-closed, but his voice was tinted with clear amusement, "I can't believe  _you're_  beginning a story with once upon a time."

"Don't interrupt," she sniffed, irritated, before continuing with added emphasis, " _Once upon a time_ , a  _very_  long time ago, there was a boy who loved the stars."

Sam settled back against the bed, relaxing into the pillows.

"Now in those days, stars would only shine for a short while before fading into darkness. But this boy loved the stars so much he wished the light would never fade. His sister—"

"He had a sister?"

"Yes, he did. And to fulfill her brother's wish, she found a dying star and filled it with brilliant fire. When it was so fierce no one could ever put it out, she hung it in the sky to light the world. But while she was placing it the sky, the flames seared her eyes until she could not see."

"Th't musta h'rt," Sam observed, exhaustion slurring his words.

"Fearing she would never be able to see the star she created, her brother killed another star, the first thing to ever die, and used its blood as a balm to soothe her eyes. After a few minutes, he peeled it away, the star-blood had cooled into two rocks, one black, the other silver. The boy placed the silver sphere in the sky to shine beside his sister's burning star. And that," she concluded, "is the story of how the sun and the moon came to be."

"D'd the sis'er 'ver see 'gain?" murmured Sam, eyes sliding shut as he began to drift to sleep.

Her voice became distant and tinged with regret, "Yes...Yes, she could see everything after that."

Sam gave an indistinct mumble.

"Go to sleep, Sam. Nothing will harm you or your brother," she promised, rising lightly to her feet and moving towards the fireplace to stir the logs until the flames crackled warmly.

She waited until his increasingly shallow breaths had smoothed into sleep before settling back down on the wood floor to wait for her brother's arrival.

 


	66. Just Guessing With Numbers and Figures

It had been nearly six years since Brady had last seen Sam and in those six years almost nothing had changed. Sam had gotten taller, larger, and Jess was dead. Other than that, same old, same old.

Dear 'ole Sammy still had anger issues to rival a pissed rattlesnake and judging from the tense disagreement between him and Dean, a healthy amount of discord also remained.

In less than two years, a couple of demons, and a few almost insultingly easy manipulations, Sam had betrayed Dean, Dean had rejected Sam, and they both released Lucifer from his cage, jumpstarting the apocalypse. And all Azazel, Brady, and Ruby did was set up the dominoes, give one slight push in the right direction, and watch as Sam's resentment sometimes glimpsed at Stanford bloom into blind anger and Dean's self-doubt cripple him into inaction.

It was ridiculous, this dread and reputation Sam and Dean had established in the ranks as a "problem." Certainly, they could kill demons, but to be feared as a force which could withstand Lucifer? To withstand the  _apocalypse?_

Laughable.

So when Sam shoved a knife into his chest, Brady dragged his eyes to Dean, expecting to see anger, disgust, rejection.

He didn't.

_(Those sons of bitches just don't get it. You see, Brady, we're the ones you should be afraid of.)_

He saw acceptance, trust,  _brothers._

 _They're going to win,_ whispered Brady, the  _real_ Brady, within the mind they shared before they were both ripped apart by violent light,  _They're united now and nothing can stop them._


	67. We Will Illuminate This Broken Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 9th in the Old Ones 'Verse
> 
> Right, The Old Ones Arc is for the most part canon-compliant. This particular chapter is placed within The Old Ones Arc, but it's an AU set right after 5.16 which explores what would happen if Dean agreed to leave Sam and be tutored by Death. So it's sorta an AU for my own universe, if that makes sense.

After Minnesota, Dean drives to a motel alone and says yes.

But not to Michael.

"I thought the devil had you on a leash," Dean comments.

Death lips twitch slightly. "It would take a being much older and much more powerful than a brat throwing a tantrum to bind me."

"You want to teach me?"

Death inclines his head.

"Fine."

"Are you certain?" Death asks as Dean sets his gun in a box labelled for Robert Singer, "Once you agree, there will be no turning back."

"One condition," Dean states, "Lucifer stays away from Sam. Doesn't matter what happens, if Sam says yes or not, Lucifer stays out."

"Agreed."

Dean takes one last swig from a flask.

"Then yes."

o0o

Dean never realized how young he was until now. Before, his perspective was so small, so limited. The things Death shows him are stunning, awe-inspiring.

They weave through galaxies, cacophony of colors weaving wondrous streams of light into pulsing darkness.

Basking in this beating warmth, Dean cannot understand how he once did and humanity still does walk the earth without freezing where they stand.

Dean strokes a star lightly with a finger and light trickles out with his touch.

"It's singing," he realizes, looking up at Death, perplexed, "But I don't understand."

Death's eyes are sharper than a hawk's as his gaze examines Dean's face.

"You will."

o0o

Dean learns quickly.

He reaps a thousand, ten thousand, hundreds of thousands, but emptiness is gnawing him from the inside, nestling ins his core and branching into every touch and thought.

"I want to see Sam," he murmurs.

Death snaps his fingers once and they are gone.

o0o

Sam is sitting on a grassy hill, back towards them a dark python draped about his shoulders. The instant Dean steps forward, he jerks to his feet, the snake slithering off his back before winding itself around Death's proffered arm.

"Sam?" begins Dean hesitantly.

"Why'd you leave?" Sam's strained voice is a painful contradiction to his blank face, "I thought you had said yes to Michael."

For a moment, Dean doesn't know what to say, how to say it, or if he's going to screw this up like he's seems to have done with everything else in his life.

So he decides that words are more trouble than they're worth and pulls Sam into a embrace which carries the same painful loss that once stemmed from a stab wound in a back.

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers, voice muffled in Dean's shoulder, "It was bent - the memories. They weren't the ones that mattered."

"I know, Sammy."

o0o

"You teach us together," Dean states, standing defensively beside his brother, "Or not at all."

Fate coils tighter, hissing laughter as if she understands something no one else has noticed, but Death only inclines his head placidly and says, "Very well."

Dean thinks he looks pleased, but it's hard to tell.

o0o

When Dean travelled from school to school, he never made many friends. But those he did he spent weeks with, learning their every move, every habit, every instinct and reaction before allowing them to meet Sam.

So when Fate begins to explain to Sam the agony when the sun seared her eyes and Death pulls him away without a word, Dean understands.

He figures he'll prove himself eventually.

o0o

"Could I withstand him?" asks Sam. "Hold him off long enough to jump?"

And Dean hates that Sam is even  _considering_ this, that he is even  _letting_ Sam consider this.

The albatross perching Death's shoulder cocks its head, violet eyes pondering Sam's question.

_Do you know who you are?_

Sam transfers his gaze to Dean and Dean can see the prank wars, the laughter, the fears, the idolization, the  _love_.

"Yes," Sam answers, "I do."

o0o

"Can I get him out?" Dean demands.

"No," Death replies, "But now is the perfect opportunity to teach you."

o0o

"What did you and that  _reaper_ do to my vessel?" rages Lucifer, hurling burning light across the expanse of the cage.

Dean catches and molds it into a writhing sphere within his hands. With a twitch of his fingers it pulses across the room, crushing Lucifer into the ever-shifting walls.

Cradling Sam's glistening soul close to his chest, Dean steps back through the boundaries of the cage.

"Time to leave, Sammy."

o0o

"Why us?" demands Dean when Death shows him multitude of knotted strands and broken cords which hold the world in place.

"My sister loves the stars and your brother's soul is a blazing comet. As for you," Death's face is guarded in the luminance of streaming souls and even with all he has learned, Dean cannot see past his mask. "You are broken and it is always the broken things which are the most beautiful."

o0o

Fate never appears in the same form whenever she and Sam arrive. Once she was graceful woman, face impenetrable and guarded. Another time, a wiry tiger, lean and wary, prowling circles around Sam.

But each form carries the same orchid eyes whose gaze peels the world apart layer by layer.

 _Sit,_ a coal-black siamese orders him one day, weaving between his feet.

This time Death remains on the outskirts and doesn't intervene as Fate begins to speak.

And when Sam relaxes beside him, shoulders brushing as they listen tale of Death and Fate, Dean knows he's where he's meant to be.

o0o

They are standing on the shore of the sea.

Death is withered, Fate is a thin girl with eyes far too ancient for a child, and neither Sam nor Dean have aged a day since they said yes to two beings older than time itself.

"This is our world," Dean protests.

Death slides off his ring and lets it fall to the ground. "Everything must end and it is this world's time."

"But why fire?" whispers Sam and Dean steps closer to his brother, reassuring him with a gentle bump to his elbow. It has been centuries since the Cage, but some memories remain vivid no matter how much time has passed.

"This fire is beautiful," promises Fate, breathing flame into the air.

They bathe the world in the sun and Sam laughs, carefree, drinking in the blazing warmth and flowing through the chill of the moon.

Dean thinks he might finally understand.

 


	68. Rain Drops Upon My Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 0th in The Old Ones 'Verse, Prequel - set before to Whose Hand Commands This Thunder

He wanders away one night, looking, even though he knows he  _should_ be sleeping. Dean's sleeping and Dean always says he should never wander alone. Most of the time he can cope fine, make sense, find his way. Other times things get too loud, the screams are too strong, and even when the red and blood and skin is gone, Lucifer is always there with an endless stream of snide comments.

But something's pulling him along, guiding him toward's a feeling nestled deep within his core.

He can't remember what it is.

 _Hopeless cause, Sammy-boy,_ whispers Lucifer,  _Only me left now._

Closing his eyes, he lets the flowing murmur pull him along until he stands in a decrepit ballroom, slick with dust and filled with streaming, icy light. A slender girl sways on a bench, pale and willowy, her light fingers coaxing a lilting stream of music from a black piano.

 _Can you feel it?_ she asks, shadowed eyes dark against candescent skin,  _Not many can. You have to listen. You have to care. Only the broken ones really listen. Only the ones who still believe, even in devastation._

He can see it streaming, iridescent and hidden. It cloaks everything in hard, clear shimmers, transforming reality into dreams until Lucifer's muttering fades into empty echoes. Time and movement is trapped into ethereal beauty.

There's only dancing notes floating on the breathless air.

"-am!  _Sam!_  C'mon on, dude, you're freaking me out here. You've been missing for almost four hours...Damnit, Sam, it's less than thirty degrees in here. We need to warm you up."

"I could feel it,"he murmurs while two hands rub his arms, forcing sluggish blood to flow once more, "It was real...more real than anything."

In the morning, it's almost gone, barely there, a dream he conjured while wandering in the wintry ice until Dean found him, half-dead beside a cracked piano.

But for days he still hears haunting chords trickling into the freezing night.


	69. Until You Make Me Whole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Companion piece to "Listen to the Tone and the Violent Rhythm."

Samuel is cold (empty) and certain (logic). Something was left behind when Castiel pulled him from the Cage (it was important) and he goes on without it. He tells Dean he's Sam, his brother, he's back, but the world has become shaded in blacks and whites (clarity), laid out in clear mathematics (equations). Sometimes Dean laughs and hollowness (it's gone) stirs in Samuel's core.

But they're working a case so he shakes it off.

Sam is broken (agony) and shattered (lost). He knew exactly what he was signing up for when he jumped into the Cage (he thought) and Lucifer fulfilled his expectations in ways that shred his mind into raw agony. Lucifer loved peeling him apart (as Dean), but Sam got out (he thinks). Every day is an unbearable weight and each time Dean tells him that they are (never) going to be fine, that they are (not) brothers, that they'll always be together (until Dean leaves), Sam thinks something's off.

But he knows that's just because he spent more time with Lucifer's Dean than his own.

He holds it together (usually). Lucifer enjoys poking at the shards and sometimes he prods the right spot and everything collapses. Then Sam feels fingernails picking apart bloody membrane (bullet in the mouth) and Samuel spouts cold reason (it would be logical) and Dean (Lucifer) is just laughing, laughing, laughing...

Someone's talking, about Alistair (worn down), and hell (you can know), and brothers (they couldn't fake you).

He's Samuel, clinical and distant. He's Sam, a broken mass in the raw crush of the Cage. But he's deeper than either and before he became them, he was twelve years-old, gazing in adoration at the big brother who always protected him from everyone, always called him  _Sammy._

And when exhausted weeping begins to shake the bed, he (Sammy) picks up the shattered pieces of hell-fire and screaming and fits them together until he can uncurl from the corner and comfort his brother.

 


	70. Harder Than Ending is Starting Again

_How do ya do it, Dad?_ wonders Dean, young and inquisitive.

John pauses cleaning the gun, somber,  _There are lots of lessons you're gonna have to learn, Dean-o. But the most important is that sometimes you have to let go if you ever want to move on._

(Dean remembers Mommy, comforting and gentle as she tucked him into bed.

She's gone now and Daddy doesn't have her anymore, but Dean can't  _really_  understand because Sam still sits beside him.)

-0-

 _How do ya do it, Sam?_ asks Dean, careful and curious.

Sam fingers a ring, tears quietly streaming down his face,  _There are a lot of lessons I've learned, Dean. But I guess the big one is that sometimes you have to let go if you ever want to move on._

(Dean remembers Jessica, love and amusement twinkling in her eyes.

She's gone now and Sam doesn't have her anymore, but Dean can't  _really_  understand because Sam still sits beside him.)

-0-

 _How do ya do it, Bobby?_ inquires Dean, cautious and interested.

Bobby looks up from his books and stares out the window,  _Life's tossed a lot of lessons at me, kid, but the one that's really stuck is that if you ever want to actually live again, not just survive, you've got to let go._

(Dean remembers Karen, kindness and motherhood infusing all her smiles.

She's gone now and Bobby doesn't have her anymore, but Dean can't  _really_ understand because Sam still sits beside him.)

-0-

Sam fell while the wind whirled around a thousand tombstones and the sky grew bleaker with every second.

 _How do ya do it, Lise?_ whispers Dean, broken and hopeless.

Lisa curls tighter, warm and comforting, as if she could hold him together with her own two hands,  _You've got to let go sometime, Dean._

(But it's the one lesson he never learned.)

 


	71. Carve Your Name Into My Arm

After they fall into the Cage, Michael and Lucifer agree for the first time in a millennia.

It's absolutely terrifying.

Both Adam and Sam know what's coming, but before it can begin, Sam steps out and strikes a deal—he's free game, the whole time, any time, but they don't get to touch Adam.  _Ever_.

Michael stalks closer, eyes searing with white flame, and Lucifer runs a forked tongue along Sam's ear, salivating with expectation, but in the end, they both give curt nods and shove a frantically protesting Adam behind them before descending, fiercer than vultures, onto Sam.

They made a deal to only harm Sam, but that doesn't mean they won't conjure mirage after mirage of Adam and pick it apart before his eyes.

It only takes twenty years for Sam to forget he ever made a deal and soon the desperate screams of, " _Dean,"_ are intermingled with the sobbing pleas of, " _Not my little brother. Not Adam. Me. Please, take me."_

 _"We are merciful,"_ intones Michael, once Sam's vocal chords are bleeding raw and Adam's voice is a hoarse gasp from trying to break through the false images and provide some form of mental relief to Sam.

They never cut or burn or pick Adam apart, yes, but they make him watch year after year as they fillet a keening, writhing Sam who begs for it because he thinks it will save his brother.

And that is so much worse.

When a withered man in a suit appears beside him and states,  _"I'm here to take one of you out,"_ Adam pleads,  _"Take him, please take him,"_ and sobs with relief when the screaming ends and Sam vanishes in a bright light.

For the first time in nearly two centuries, there's complete silence. Adam can see the promise wavering on Michael's face and Lucifer snaps his head toward him, a terrifying, excited expression covering his features.

 _"Well, this could be fun as well,"_ remarks Lucifer eagerly, sidling towards him. Michael shrugs and follows.

But Adam doesn't care as long as his brother is free.


	72. Not Much Here, But What's Left is Mine

Something was left behind. It was obvious the moment he opened his eyes to warm, pouring rain and a muddy field. He didn't feel elated, afraid, disturbed.

He felt empty.

Like something he needed had been ripped out and the universe somehow expected him to go on without it.

The immediate course of action was obvious—find Dean. But Dean was living with Lisa, acting as a father to Ben, and maybe he wasn't happy, but he could be,  _would_ be, given time. So Sam leaves.

Samuel Campbell is a smarmy bastard. "We're blood" is all well and good, but he seems determined to forget that Sam is a  _Winchester,_ not a a Campbell. And call Sam a paranoid, disloyal son of a bitch, but he barely trusts Samuel to watch his back on a hunt. He'd sooner return to the Cage for a snowball fight with Lucifer before ever trusting Samuel with Dean.

"We could really use your brother's help with these monsters," suggests Samuel, cautious eyes tracking Sam like a bird of prey.

The emptiness in Sam's core fluctuates, as if, although a vital piece was missing, the  _loss_ itself is reminding him of something he used to have. But Dean has a life and maybe he isn't happy, but he could be,  _would_ be, given time.

"No," and his voice removes any room for discussion.

"I'm just saying, Sam, you're brother can't avoid his past forever. Hunting is in Dean's blood. We're family. He owes us."

There is a gleam in Samuel's eyes that Sam doesn't like and certainly doesn't trust.

If Sam had to give a name for the angry emptiness branching into every vein, he'd call it protectiveness, or maybe something where protectiveness used to be.

He rises to his feet, every muscle flexing as he drills a hard, unforgiving glare into Samuel's face.

"I'm going to say this only once, Samuel. You and the others will  _stay the fuck - away - from - my - brother."_

Ignoring Samuel's barely contained sigh of relief when he steps past, Sam leans against the table and begins cleaning his guns, partly cause he needs to, partly to make a point.

He still doesn't know what missing, but he wishes he could get it back.

* * *


	73. In the Shape of Things to Come

Samuel hates John Winchester. No man would have ever deserved Mary, but Winchester, that idealistic, naive son of a bitch took her away from her family, away from  _protection_ , and just stood idly by while a demon gutted her on the ceiling.

As far as he's concerned, this resurrection is a chance to repair everything John Winchester did wrong with Mary's children, a chance to take all that Winchester influence and re-work his grandsons into a solid Campbell mindset.

It's fairly obvious there's something off about Sam. Samuel's seen him leave civilians to die in agony if it means he can kill the monster he's hunting. Hell does things to a person, sure, and yes, the greater good should be held highest in the grand scheme of things, but, damn, the kid doesn't even blink. For the most part, however, Sam seems content to follow his decisions and let him call the shots.

Until he suggests pulling Dean back into the game. It rakes him wrong all kinds of ways that Dean is out there, ignorant of his true Campbell roots, that damn Winchester training remaining uncorrected.

Sam's reaction is foreboding and dangerously clear.  _Stay the fuck away from my brother_ , he snarls, inches from Samuel's face. It's the closest thing Samuel has ever seen to real emotion on Sam's face and it absolutely terrifies him.

As much as he wants to approach Dean anyways, he refrains. In his mind, he rationalizes it's because he doesn't want to alienate his grandson.

It's actually because part of him thinks that " _we're blood"_ won't mean a damn thing if he goes after Dean and Sam is one cold, scary bastard when he's pissed.


	74. Every Me and Every You

Lucifer doesn't regret a lot. Regrets almost nothing actually.

But sometimes he remembers before. Before he rebelled, before Michael decided to kill him, before he and his brothers were divided by those scraps of dung named humanity.

_Before._

Michael, the eldest. Always obedient, always strong, the unmatched leader of the host. No matter the difficultly or complexity, he would give sound advice to any who asked and protect his brothers with unending fervor. His laugh was the most incredible thing Lucifer every heard.

Raphael, defender of the prophets. More melancholy than the others, but his fierceness in battle was joy to behold. His light reaped enemies to the ground and he gloried in his Father's commands. Sometimes he would weave canopies of light and Lucifer would watch the brilliant strands dance while he sang.

And Gabriel. Gabriel, who carried the Horn of Truth into every battle, who loved mischievous pranks and clever jokes, who wielded the fury of an archangel, yet still laughed brighter than all his brothers. Gabriel, who is finally standing up to the older brother he always idolized and followed.

Lucifer regrets almost nothing, but the body collapsed limply on the floor, dead eyes still reflecting shock and pain, isn't some disgusting human or childish god or mindless angelic soldier.

It's Gabriel—his little brother.

And this Lucifer  _does_ regret.

(He bows his head and weeps.)

 


	75. The Shape Between Two Stuttered Breaths

_You want to know why?_ Sam gasps as his skin bubbles away in the heat of the flame,  _Why I could take back control?_

 _You're just like me,_ replies Lucifer, gently, and lets the terrible light of his true form burn Sam deeper.

(It's been five years, but Dean didn't break in five years so neither will Sam.)

-0-

 _You want to know why?_ Sam stutters as clowns dance about him giggling maniacally,  _Why I could shove you behind that mirror?_

 _You and I are the same,_ Lucifer sing-songs with a pleasant smile and plucks the deepest, most primordial fears from Sam's mind and plays until Sam's frantically pumping heart bursts within his chest.

(It's been fifteen years, but Dean didn't break in five years so neither will Sam.)

-0-

 _You want to know why?_ Sam whispers, tears streaming down his face as Lucifer slices Jessica open,  _Why you couldn't finish that final blow?_

 _You belonged to me, even at Stanford,_ Lucifer croons, gently stroking Sam's hair, and lets the flames lick around Sam to show him just what kind of death he doomed his mother and girlfriend to when he entered their lives.

(It's been twenty-five years, but Dean didn't break in twenty-five years so neither will Sam.)

-0-

 _You want to know why?_ Sam slurs through the blood staining his teeth, _Why I could beat you?_

Lucifer pauses, slick blood sliding down his face, and twirls the wiry scalpel thoughtfully.  _Fine then, why could you beat me?_

 _Because,_ Sam pauses for a cough that sprays red everywhere,  _I would never kill my brother._

And he's not talking about Michael.

Pure, undiluted  _wrath_ disfigures Lucifer's face into an enraged snarl.

 _You lost this war the moment you killed Gabriel,_ Sam spits and doesn't even care when his heart is shivering, peeled open into the frigid air, and every desperate wheeze for air forces him to hack up blood and bits of lung.

(It's been thirty years and Sam's going to break soon, but he hasn't yet so for now he just laughs and laughs in tune with the pain because he is _nothing_ like Lucifer.)


	76. Of Spells and Snarky Brothers, Part 3

"It's very...intriguing."

Sam stared at him in disbelief. "Intriguing? That's your response? It's very  _intriguing?_ "

"I…" Castiel glanced towards Dean who was shaking from barely controlled laughter and remaining particularly unhelpful. " _Is_ there a proper response for this situation?"

"You say, 'We'll figure something out,'" Sam ranted, "Or, 'I'll see what I can do,' or better yet, 'Hold still while I change you back.' You  _don't_  say, 'It's very intriguing'!"

"Your voice is very high," observed Castiel.

With commendable forethought, Dean tucked his own gun into his waistband and slipped Sam's under a mattress.

"I'm  _female!"_

"That appears fairly obvious."

"So essentially," Dean interjected as Sam stalked over to his bag, vainly searching for a gun, "There's nothing you can do. We'll just just have to wait for the spell to wear off."

"It should wear off no later than a week," promised Castiel.

They both watched, contemplative, as Sam alternated between loudly demanding, "Why?" at the ceiling and muttering about, "irritating, smug, unsympathetic brothers and their myopic, unhelpful angels." Suddenly spent, he threw himself dramatically into a motel chair and began sullenly munching chocolate.

Dean leaned slightly towards a wide-eyed Castiel. "No longer than a week, right?"

"Hopefully less."

To the side, Sam was now glaring at the empty candy wrapper. Tossing the wrapper at the trashcan (and missing), he moved back across the room, eyes firmly locked onto another chocolate bar. As he did so, his bare hand lightly brushed Castiel's. All three of them froze.

Dean was the first to break the stunned silence.

"Awkward."

Sam circled cautiously. "It's very intriguing."

Castiel twined his voluminous hair around his finger carefully, as if he was afraid it might bite him. "The spell appears to be contagious," he noted.

"You're  _kidding_ ," Dean responded drily.

"So...Dean," a wicked smile lit Sam's face as he spread his arms and approached his brother, "Hug?"


	77. Of Spells and Snarky Brothers, Part 4

Castiel examined his currently soft and pale hands critically. "This is uncomfortable."

There was an unwomanly snort from Sam's corner.  _"Exactly."_

"I thought angels didn't have gender," commented Dean while he finished packing the weapons into his bag.

"It's…" Castiel hesitated, "...a complicated concept. I could explain the metaphysical aspects of masculinity and femininity, but it's ultimately irrelevant. This situation is unsettling because the vessel I'm occupying has become female when it  _should_ be male."

"Right, well," Dean waved Castiel's explanation aside, "Before we leave, we need some ground rules." He motioned for Sam and Castiel to sit in front of him. "Bobby did some more research on the spell. Turns out it can only be passed to family and friends considered to be family. Rule 1: Absolutely no touching me. Rule 2: No weapons. Don't start," he cut across as Sam began to protest, "And that includes you, Cas. No angel mojo. If this spell can affect an angel's vessel who knows what the other side effects might be. We all clear?"

Sam crossed his arms, eyeing the weapons bag, before reluctantly humming an affirmative. Castiel nodded his agreement.

While Sam took the bags out to the car, Dean headed over with Castiel to Mr. Peppy the Energizer Clerk to check out.

"Fun night?" piped the clerk brightly with a knowing glance between the two of them.

Castiel blinked at him. "It was very uncomfortable."

Dean gagged on some saliva and dissolved into a coughing fit.

"Dean," Castiel nudged him with an elbow.

"I'm sorry, a priority shipment just arrived. Please excuse me for a moment," said the clerk, disappearing into the back room, a sunny grin Hallmark would have proud of firmly planted on his face.

"Dean."

"Bit busy, Cas," he wheezed.

_"Dean."_

The urgency of Castiel's tone caught his attention. Following the angel's gaze, Dean looked through the window and immediately sprinted outside, a stream of half-formed curses on his lips.

While Dean had been preoccupied with checking out and all the questionable joys that came with it, three men had circled around his brother. On any other day, handling a group of douchebags would have been no problem, but Sam's female form left him about a hundred pounds less and half a foot shorter than usual. Consequently, he was now cornered, back to the Impala, weaponless, as three sleezeballs continued to inch closer.

The tense expression on Sam's face, almost bordering on panic, sent Dean into such a rage he didn't even bother to quip some smart-ass remark before slamming one guy's head into the Impala. Personally, Dean was having an absolutely marvelous time beating the crap out of two of the men while Sam employed every ounce of his jujitsu knowledge on the largest of the three. After about five minutes of good ole' fashioned fighting, the residential creepers-of-the-week decided it just wasn't worth it any more and fled the scene, though at that point there was more limping than any fleeing.

"You okay, Sammy?"

"Actually," Sam admitted breathlessly, flexing his bruised knuckles, "That was kinda of therapeutic."

"You're getting rusty."

Sam blew the long strands of his hair out of his face indignantly. "Rusty? There were  _three_ of them and they each had at least fifty pounds on me!" He turned towards an approaching Castiel. "And a lot of help  _you_ were."

"Rule number two," Castiel responded with an expression that suggested Sam had been turned into an idiot as well as a woman, "It is fortunate Dean was there. Are you alright?"

"Well, geez, thanks for the concern," Dean said sarcastically.

Sam snorted. "I'm fine."

"It appears they had intentions upon your virtue," Castiel noted seriously.

Sam blushed a brilliant shade of red and promptly rammed his elbow into Dean's solar plexus.

"I didn't even say anything!" Dean gasped.

"No, but you were  _thinking_ it," Sam sniffed in response.

"Women…"

He wasn't quick enough to dodge the second elbow either.


	78. In My Sorrow Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here be a Sherlock crossover.

Three years. He held out for three years. Three years of no violin at four in the morning, no random shooting at the wall, no butchered Cluedo games, no badly-timed comments or arrogant mocking. Three years of nightmares, memories, limping,  _silence._

 _You'll regret it,_ Dean warned him,  _Things would be different now if I had held out. Michael, Lucifer, the apocalypse. None of it would have happened._

 _How long did you last?_ John asks.

 _Three days,_ Dean admits.

 _It's been three years. Could you have lived three years without Sam?_ John turns to the door and doesn't wait for the quiet,  _No._

(Three years of  _one more miracle_ and  _don't be dead_ and  _stop this._ Three years of  _gone.)_

 _Well, aren't you quite the devoted sidekick,_ smirks the demon, shifting Anthea's eyes crimson,  _On any other day, I'd love to screw over any friend of the Winchesters, but I'm feeling generous today. You've lived three years without Sherlock. I'll give you three years with him. Three years to make up for the ones you lost. Then we collect._

John creaks open the door of the flat, hopeful, desperate, and a thousand different things all at once. Sherlock is staring contemplatively out the window, winding a familiar tune on the violin as if he had never left.

If it had been anyone else, John would have lied, tried to convince them they were in a coma, but this is  _Sherlock_  and John still remembers the bones protruding through his neck, and the dark red dripping down his face, and the clammy iciness in his wrist. (He knows Sherlock does too.)

So he sits Sherlock down and explains about monsters and demons and hunters and the time he spent in America and what he learned and how a friend of his made a deal once and  _God help me, Sherlock, you were gone for_ ** _three years._**

Sherlock listens and when John's voice breaks and the tears stinging his eyes finally trickle down, he plucks John's favorite song on the violin.

 _I don't care what it takes, John,_ he promises, face lit with a determination so distinctly  _Sherlock_ more tears well up in John's eyes,  _We'll get you out of the deal._

(But he was gone for  _three years_ and John doesn't care about the price as long as Sherlock's alive.)


	79. I Left My Heart in a Plastic Box—

(In the beginning, they were brothers. By the end, all the elder could see was the evil scarring his younger brother's features.)

They died (again) and went to heaven and Zachariah crafted Sam's memories (decent ones, but not the best) and Dean decided he never meant anything to his brother. Two weeks later and a box labeled for Robert Singer, Dean said yes and disappeared in a wave of brilliant light.

(In the beginning, they would have died for each other. By the end, he was left alone, bitter and raging, because he loved his older brother too much.)

Sam held on for a while—kept on hunting, trying to find a way to exorcise an angel, to put the devil back in his box. But Dean was gone (said yes in a hotel room and Sam wasn't there) and Lucifer was whispering constant sympathy and comfort (no one to nudge him awake) and if Sam thought he had been tired before, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. Two months later and the realization he never stood a chance alone, Sam said yes and shining white flared around him.

(In the beginning, they swore nothing would tear them apart. By the end, they wondered how they ever thought they could resist.)

Destiny demanded two angels (brothers) waging a war planned a millennia before where only one could be victor. But when Lucifer gained the upper hand, Sam whispered  _(Dean)_ and when Michael took shifted to shove his sword upwards, Dean remembered  _(Sammy)_ and both angels froze as memory after memory poured in until it melded into  _launching at the sky, wings spread wide in joy and laughter while they danced among showering comets, free, happy, together, brothers._

 _We used to be like them,_ murmurs Lucifer.

Michael tosses his sword aside,  _I weary of fighting, brother. Where shall we go?_

Lucifer grins at his brother and breaks into a run,  _I'll race you to the stars._

(In the beginning, they were fated to kill each other. By the end...well, they haven't reached the end yet, but neither of them give a damn about destiny.)


	80. —It Will Be Locked Til I Get Home

* * *

_I'd like to see you try,_ snarls Lucifer and Michael does, but his little brother has learned much since their last fight and Lucifer slams Michael against the ground, pulling back his sword for the last blow.

 _Don't,_ pleads Sam inside his mind, shoving memory after memory at him. (Dean triggering a prank war every month, Dean showing him how to fix the Impala, Dean pulling him from a room wrapped in flames, Dean holding him close while a hole in his back burned everything into oblivion, Dean selling his own soul save him, Dean, his big brother, Dean, always Dean, no one else.)

 _Fuck destiny,_ murmurs Lucifer and pulls Michael to his feet.

 _I don't have a choice,_ replies Michael and now that he has an opening, there is no stopping him, no matter how much his brother has learned. Lucifer is on the ground, blood seeping everywhere and Michael flexes his fingers around the knife, shifting his grip for the final thrust.

 _Don't,_ demands Dean inside his mind, sifting through memory after memory. (Giving Sam his first beer, killing anything that threatened Sam, shielding Sam in his arms while his brother's blood trickled over his hands, making a deal to save Sam, Sam willing to do whatever it took to save him, Sammy, his little brother, always Sammy, no one else.)

 _I'm sorry,_ Michael whispers, dropping his sword onto the bloody grass and gathering Lucifer into his arms,  _I'm so sorry, I'm sorry..._

For days they kneel there, Michael gently rocking his brother and crushing any angel who came near them with a single thought while Lucifer finally tells him every moment of agony and despair he suffered in the Cage. When their muscle and bone has knit back together, Michael takes his brother's hand in his and asks,  _Shall we dance among the stars again, little brother?_

Lucifer laughs and stretches his wings.


	81. It's Dark Inside

_A stone's throw away from serial killers,_ Bella said. And really, when you think about it, she wasn't that far off. Given the right target, the right incentive, well… Who wouldn't throw the stone?

.

It starts shortly after Gordon when they're back at the motel, drained and stressed. Sam is sitting on the bed, flexing his fingers, face blank and inscrutable.

Most of Dean is extremely proud of Sam for going hand-to-hand with vampire and coming out on top. But a small part in the back of his mind (which is much larger than Dean cares to think about) is absolutely enraged he didn't get to experience the feeling of wire steadily embedding itself in Gordon's throat, watch the skin slowly turn crimson before finally giving way in a grotesque splatter of veins and blood.

Gently cradling Sam's clenched fingers, Dean silently rubs them until Sam lets out a long breath and raises his head to gaze at Dean.

"Bella,"Sam murmurs.

Dean feels the hair on the nape of his neck rise in anticipation.

.

Bella is a lot less clever than she gives herself credit for. They find her tucked away, casually living in the nicest foreclosure on the block (the rest of which is conveniently foreclosed as well).

"Well, hey there," comments Dean, leaning casually against the door, and the desperate speed with which Bella dives for a gun resting on a nearby table shows she knows she isn't getting out of this alive.

Two minutes and a bit of maneuvering later, Bella is on the ground, frantically alternating between cradling her broken arm and, "I didn't mean to I'll fix it please don't kill me please don't kill me  _please._ "

Hoisting a weighty statue of a hound, Sam is just beginning the arcing swing towards her head when Dean catches his arm and calmly states, "She sent Gordon after you. She's  _mine_."

For a moment, Dean thinks Sam is going to object. Then Sam quirks an odd smile and the statue hits the ground with a heavy  _thunk._

Dean allows smile to materialize on his features as Bella's desperate pleas become screaming.

.

Dean dies.

He comes back eventually.

Bobby has quite the story to tell once he makes sure Dean is human (Dean isn't so sure himself). Sam's gone, been gone for a while, and no one knows where. It's a cold case through and through, Bobby says, and Dean has got his work cut out for him. Before he died, Dean would have said he knows his brother better than he knows himself, but after four weeks all he has is a string of murders along the eastern coast and the look on Sam's face when he clenched his fingers and whispered, "Bella."

Dean thinks he knows where Sam is.

.

The reunion is odd. Sam's at a motel with a prostitute he quickly dismisses so he can hug his brother in relief and complete joy, but Dean doesn't know what to do, how to act. A string of murders along the eastern coast and underneath it all Dean can see the same inscrutable expression marking Sam's face.

 _I know,_ he wants to say,  _I followed the trail and it led me to you._ But Dean doesn't say anything and chooses not mention all the nights Sam's bed is untouched and empty.

A small part in the back of his mind (which is decreasing much faster than Dean cares to admit) thinks he should feel guilty. Except that every night Dean dreams about ten years of peeling skin open amidst raw gasping. And when he wakes up, it's never to shake off a nightmare, but to try to find the dream again.

.

It's another morning beside an empty bed and Dean is dreaming of  _bloodcrimsonthickstringyletm egoback_ when Castiel materializes into the motel room.

He's droning on about  _we have work for you_  and  _you're brother's heading down a dangerous road_ and  _stop him or we will._ Yes, Dean's grateful to Castiel for bringing him back (to Sam) but he misses the delicious freedom of hell, doesn't give shit about God since the bastard never did anything help him anyway, and if any of these sons of bitches hurt his brother…

...Dean will kill them all.

.

Dean misses his brother a lot. Sam's so furtive now, tense, sneaking off in the middle of the night. It's not that Sam has to tell Dean everything (though Dean wishes he would), it's just that Dean's so tired of the lying, the secrets.

So he tracks Sam to an abandoned warehouse.

And enters to find the prostitute from a few days ago strapped down to a metal table amidst a devil's trap...and Sam, towering over her, eyes burning with intensity, with his hand wrapped around the demon-killing knife firmly buried in the woman's stomach.

Dean thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

.

"I've wanted to tell you for so long," chokes Sam, voice thick, when Dean wraps his arms around him.

"How long?" asks Dean and he wants to know. How long Sam had to hide an itch to kill, hide from his family, hide from  _him_.

"Always," is the whispered reply; then a moment after, "It's why I left for college - Stanford… Most of the time I could hold it back, but...being watched like a monster… I couldn't take it."

(Dean wonders how much John suspected, how much he knew.)

"I was afraid you hate me…that you wouldn't understand. And then Lilith...you were - gone… There wasn't a reason to hold back anymore."

"I'd never hate you, Sam." He wouldn't have understood, not before (hadn't when Sam killed Jake, hadn't when Sam fired bullet after exultant bullet) and for that Dean is sorry. But now, after everything (after Bella, after hell)...that gorgeous slick blood, watching the life drip into a smooth pool on the floor, the incessant urge to  _kill_ …

"I understand, Sammy," Dean holds his brother (not a monster, never a monster to him), "I understand."

.

There was a string of murders along the east coast.

Within a month it's been doubled.

Sam picks the victims, Dean picks the place; Sam gets the finishing blow, Dean gets all the fun before that.

"No innocents," says Sam, "Only the ones who deserve it."

Dean doesn't particularly care, but it's what Sammy wants and there were never any innocents in hell anyways.

Five dead in one month and this is just the beginning. They're too well-trained, too practiced, too skilled for anyone to notice (too born to do this) and Dean has never felt so alive as he does skinning a murderer with Sam by his side waiting for Dean to finish so he can slice open the stomach of this quivering gobbing mass and watch the blood pour out.

(Heaven and hell protest, of course, but in the end it all comes down to a very simple question.

Why burn the world when you can have some fun instead?)

.

 _A stone's throw away from serial killers,_ Bella had said. And really, when you think about it, she wasn't that far off. Given the right target, the right incentive, well… Bella really shouldn't have sent Gordon after Sam.

 


	82. I Heard a Cry from Six Feet Down

_"I found a loophole,"_ says Sam, the first time he calls.

Dean hangs up before Sam can even take another breath.

.

 _"Dean, listen,"_ Sam begs the second time,  _"There's a ritual. If we can just work togeth—"_

Dean yanks out the battery and doesn't bother to turn the phone on for a week.

.

The last time Sam calls, Dean jerks open the phone and snaps,  _"What? You've been hounding me for weeks, so what do you want?"_

Only uneven breathing greets him.

 _"Sam…"_ warns Dean, thumb hovering over the 'END' button.

 _"I found a way,"_ Sam says finally,  _"A way to stop Lucifer."_

Dean snorts.  _"Good. It's about time you get off your ass and start picking up this mess you've made."_

_"...Dean."_

And Sam's tone is so pleading, so pain-filled, Dean is almost tempted to let it all go, to tell Sam it's alright, to tell him to come back…almost.

_"Dean...I—"_

_"—You what, Sam? You're_ sorry?" Dean emphasizes every word with unyielding precision,  _"This doesn't get fixed by 'sorry', You betrayed me for a_ demon.  _You're own brother. You freed the_ devil.  _'Sorry' doesn't cover this._

 _"Please,"_ says Sam. And hidden inside is  _for all the times we protected each other, for every prank we pulled, or each time you refused to give up on me...please._

 _"You're side of the hemisphere,"_ Dean reminds coldly.

After a moment, Sam's voice drifts over the phone,  _"...Right. You were always right… Goodbye, Dean."_

Dean tries to go back to researching, but he can't get the emptiness in Sam's voice out of his head.

When he calls back five minutes later, Sam's phone is disconnected.

.

Three weeks later, Castiel arrives.

Dean barely has enough time to give a start of surprise before Castiel pins him to the motel wall with one hand and grounds out,  _"Where's Sam?"_

 _(Why would I care? Why does it matter? Why did Sam betray me? Why does Hell hound my footsteps and Heaven fail us when we need it most?)_ But Dean just asks,  _"Why?"_

Castiel releases him and paces the room furiously. It's the first time Dean's ever seen the angel this truly agitated.

_"Lucifer's dead."_

Dean stares.

 _"Lucifer's dead,"_ Castiel repeats,  _"The demons are in chaos, Michael is enraged, and there's a question burning on the forefront of everyone's mind. Where is your brother?'"_

.

There's no trail. Nothing to follow.

 _"He had angel warding symbols,"_ Castiel explains,  _"I haven't been able to see him since he was attacked by hunters."_

Which is news to Dean. And if they can't find Sam, they can damn well find the hunters who attacked him.

.

Tim and Reggie are torturing a demon when Castiel finds them.

 _"He's an abomination,"_ Tim spits,  _"We shoved that blood down his throat and he drank it like the monster he is."_

Castiel burns their souls and Dean uses every ounce knowledge Alistair ever gave him to make the demon talk, but no matter what he does, it only hacks up flecks of black blood and sneers,  _"Get used to being alone."_

.

They bury the bodies in an abandoned dirt lot.

Dean is turning to go when Castiel says,  _"He stopped praying four weeks ago."_

Four weeks ago.

_(You're side of the hemisphere.)_

Dean stumbles to the ground and retches til he trembles.

When he finally lifts his head, Castiel is gone.

.

It's been two months since Sam disappeared when Castiel returns with a solemn,  _"I found it,"_ and zaps Dean to a dry field firmly settled in the middle of nowhere.

It takes Dean a moment to realize he's standing in the center of what looks like a shallow crater. And that everything surrounding it is dead. As far into the distance as Dean can see, the field is filled with nothing but brittle, withered grass.

_"What is this, Cas?"_

_"This,"_ states Castiel slowly, _"is where Lucifer died."_

_._

_"Among heaven, stories were told sometimes,"_  Castiel gazes at the wide crevice they're standing in,  _"Whispers that there was a way to kill the Morning Star. I didn't think any record of it existed anymore. But Sam must have found it."_

_"Cas…"_

Castiel continues as if he hadn't heard.  _"Some thought that if Lucifer's essence could be contained within a vessel and trapped there, the ritual would allow the vessel's soul to physically manifest rather than be suppressed by Lucifer's will. As long as the proper runes had been carved into the vessel itself, it would prevent either the soul or Lucifer from escaping. Of course,"_ Castiel adds calmly,  _"no creature can exist with two beings present. Both would be destroyed."_

_"You're saying Lucifer could only be killed by a human soul."_

_"Not any human soul,"_  Castiel turns towards him and Dean knows what he's going to say before it even leaves his mouth. _"It would have to be the body and soul of his true vessel."_

Dean shakes his head.  _"No."_

_"Sam's dead, Dean. You've known that for weeks."_

_"No, he's not!"_ Dean explodes,  _"If he's dead, then where's—"_

 _"—his body?"_ Castiel's gaze becomes enragingly pitying,  _"Look around you. Everything within a thousand miles is dead, this crater over fifty feet wide. You do not truly believe Sam's body could have withstood the force of Lucifer's destruction."_

 _"Then his soul,"_ Dean knows he's grasping at straws, but he can't,  _won't,_  bring himself to stop,  _"We'll bring back his soul from heaven or" —_ his voice breaks—" _hell. Wherever he is, we'll find him."_

_"His soul is gone, Dean."_

Dean doesn't want to listen, wants to clamp his hands down over his ears.

But Castiel is unyielding.

_"It would have taken every pulse of it's brightness to kills Lucifer. The act would have obliterated it."_

_"No…no no no no."_ Dean won't believe it. He  _refuses_ to believe it.

Castiel takes a slight step forward and Dean staggers backward, stumbling to the ground, because it  _can't_ be true. It just  _can't._ Not after everything. Not now.

_"Dean."_

Somewhere distantly, it occurs to Dean that Castiel is beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

_"I'm sorry."_

.

Sam's gone.

_(I found a way to stop Lucifer.)_

Nothing living will ever grow in that withered field again.

_(Please.)_

A new king arises in Hell, halting the mindless chaos and establishing order.

_(You were always right.)_

Castiel returns to heaven. Michael sees little point in decreasing the population of angels by anymore.

_(Goodbye.)_

Monsters kill humans. Hunters kills monsters. Demons seal deals. Angels watch from above. The world spins unbearably on.

_(Get used to being alone.)_

Dean doesn't know what to do.

 


	83. Another Bag of Bones

Sam thought he could leave it all behind. Not the responsibility, not the guilt, not the  _weight_ (not Dean). But maybe the temptation.

He started to carve out a small corner of the world, away from demons, and blood, and hunting.

A world where Sam Winchester doesn't exist.

Until he does.

 _"I want to hear you say it,"_  spits Tim while Reggie moves to flank him with a cold expression.

_"I did it. I started the apocalypse."_

Then everything narrows into  _duck hook punch behind me struggle_ ** _blood_** _Dean, I swear I won't fall off the wagon spit it **out**  kill kill kill kill—_and Lindsey's eyes, so bewildered, so terrified.

Sam lowers the knife from Tim's throat and thinks,  _I destroy everything I touch._

_._

Another 500 miles west, angel wards, demons wards, scamming motels, and all but ransacking every library for a way to end this, but this can't last.

 _What,_ murmurs Lucifer gently when he sleeps,  _are you hoping to accomplish from running?_

Sam remains silent because, to be honest with himself, he doesn't really know.

But he does know sooner or later something's gonna give.

_._

_Whatever you're looking for, Sam, you're never going to find it._

Sam stares blankly at the placid stretch of water spread out beyond the dock he's sitting on.

 _There's only room for me,_ Lucifer whispers, stroking his hair comfortingly,  _Sooner or later, you're going to understand that I'm the answer to what you look for._

It's been nothing but weeks of unending searching of searching, and searching, and nothing, and searching again, and failing.

 _There's only room for me,_ hums the quiet lullaby in his dreams.

And then Sam finds it.

_._

Sam's not completely sure what he's onto yet, but he knows it's big and Dean needs to know.

 _"I found a loophole,"_ he begins the moment the phone's answered.

Sam would have thought he had the wrong number, except that the call ended far to rapidly for it to be anyone but Dean.

.

The moment Dean picks up the phone, Sam rushes to get his words out. " _Dean, listen. There's a ritual. If we can just work togeth—"_

The raking beep of a disconnected call breaks in.

Holding the phone loosely in his hand, Sam looks back down at the pages of the open book lying flat in front of him.

This is so much bigger than he ever thought and he is beginning to realize he's not going to survive this.

.

Sam's always been selfish. From demanding his brother let him have the last of the Lucky Charms when he was six to having the audacity, the _arrogance,_ to believe he was destined to save the world.

Sam doesn't have the right to be selfish, or cowardly. But he still dials Dean's number and prays to a heaven who never cared about him that Dean will let him come home.

He doesn't deserve forgiveness, doesn't deserve another chance...but...

…he just doesn't want to die alone.

.

 _"What?"_ snaps Dean after finally answering the phone.  _"You've been hounding for weeks, so what do you want?"_

It's been months since Sam heard Dean's voice and his words hook in the back of his throat, refusing to come out.

_"Sam…"_

_"I found a way,"_ Sam finally manages past the tenseness in his throat,  _"A way to stop Lucifer."_

_"Good. It's about time you get off your ass and start picking up this mess you've made."_

A sardonic snort travels across the phone line and it's so painfully  _Dean_ that Sam can't stop himself from murmuring his brother's name.

The hesitant pause from the other side fills him with something like hope and he says,  _"Dean, I—"_

Dean's voice cuts across, every word accented and harsh.  _"—You what, Sam? You're sorry? This doesn't get fixed by 'sorry', You betrayed me for a demon. Your own brother. You freed the devil. 'Sorry' doesn't cover this."_

Sam's face twists, but he forces himself to speak, hoping, praying,  _"Please…" (I don't want to die alone.)_

_"Your side of the hemisphere."_

It's harsh, cold, almost cruel, but Sam won't pretend he doesn't deserve any of it. After everything he has done, after all the lies, it would be a miracle if Dean had been willing to let him come back.

This...this is the price of his failures.

 _"...Right. You were always right…"_ Sam inhales slowly, the air around him clarifying into crisp, hard edges.

_"Goodbye, Dean."_

.

Sam leaves the car a couple miles away and wanders until he's roughly somewhere in the center of the vast field.

Fresh air breezes past him, swaying the tall, rich grass and the patches of small flowers scattered as far as the eye can see. A small green beetle buzzes past his ear and perches nearby on a thick strand of grass.

It's a surreal beauty, patches of sharpness amidst unfocused color.

Within an hour, everything here will be dead. Nothing could survive (except for Dean, Dean could have survived, but he can't -  _won't -_  think about that).

 _It's almost pathetic,_  Sam contemplates as he watches the small bug whir away,  _wishing that saving the world didn't require killing a beetle._ As if, for some reason, saving this beetle mattered, showed that everything he tries to do doesn't result in death.

.

Blood oozes out of the runes carved into his back and chest.

Part of him wonders if he will feel Lucifer's wings  _(there's only room for me)_  spreading, tearing through his back, trying to leave, feel his soul collide against Lucifer in bright agony, feel the solid pulse of their implosion rip him apart.

Sam has always said he would give everything to save the world.

(But his world has only ever been Dean.)

The first word of the ritual sounds into the empty air.

 


	84. A Kansas Shuffle

A week after the fire she shows up at John Winchester's door. Her breasts are still full of milk, skin still smooth as liquid chocolate, small hands not yet stiff. John speaks enough Spanish to understand what she's offering beyond the thick fog of shock dimming his world. He nods blankly and opens the door for her to enter.

 _"One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a funeral, four for a birth, five for heaven, six for hell…"_ Her voice lilts throughout the night as she nurses Sammy with the souring milk of a corpse,  _"And seven...is the devil himself."_

_._

She has a trim waist and biting wit when John Winchester and two small boys enter the diner. Perhaps her skirt is just a bit too short and her shirt a tad too low for John's instincts to be fully on their game, but if such is the case, she doesn't tell and John doesn't notice. In the back of her mind a girl is screaming to be let out, but she just places more sway into her hips as she walks away.

Before they leave, she kneels down and offers Sammy a lollipop colored a red so deep it almost looks like blood and gently places a sticker on his shirt which says,  _"A very special boy."_

.

Seven years later, she is a petite girl, with heavy bangs and watchful eyes, who doesn't need John's assistance because he's already sown the seeds of contention she needs. Sam storms out of the house, jaw clenched, eyes hard, and runs like he wants nothing more than to get away, until he collapses to the side, breathless and teary.

She plops down beside him on the sidewalk, worms writhing through her rotting organs, and says,  _"You're different than them."_

_._

When Sam is fourteen, she watches him beat a boy twice his size until blood is slick on his knuckles and the boy can only gurgle through the pulpish mass which used to be his face. It takes three teachers to pull him off and the whole time Sam is screaming that he'll rip the boy's throat out through his spine if he ever threatens Dean again.

"Excuse me," a mousy teacher with an expression of stone approaches her from the side, "What are you doing here?"

"Preparing the board for the final strategy," She answers with a smile, words coiling like a serpent preparing to strike, "Where they look left and I go right."

The teacher follows the line of her sight to Sam. "I don't—"

A vicious crunching snaps through the air.

The body to flops to the side and Ruby melts back into the shadows to watch.

To wait.


	85. Hollowing Souls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11th in the Old Ones 'Verse

They curl in thick darkness as she strokes a blackened stone, violet eyes staring out into the burning stars in the distance.

 _We could leave,_ he murmurs.

 _Not yet,_ she answers and hands him the ashy rock.  _I've written a story for us._

The stars rain down fewer every moment, and the sun and moon they cast into the sky strengthen and harden. Others will come soon. Weaker. Younger. To mar this world with their careless footsteps.

_Whose story?_

She pulls two strands of liquid gold from the burning sun and weaves them into her hair.  _Tell me, how far can a man break? How brightly can a soul shine?_

_._

The first to come are slick with darkness, oozing their way over smooth stone.

 _Eat eat eat eat eat eat eat,_ they mutter in voices thick with glee.

Birthed in gobbing black, so violent, so clever. So hungry _,_ to devour, to  _feed_. Perhaps the closest in this world to The First Ones, but still not the same.

He crushes those in his way with ease while his sister laughs.

.

The angels arrive in burning glory, arrogant from the moment they stretch their wings forth, so  _proud_ of their brightness and the way their beauty burns creation.

Of all them, one shines brighter, full and iridescent, until lesser ones name him Morning Star.

But the two golden threads woven through his sister's shadowed hair are brighter still.

 _Come, my sister,_ he says,  _let us become something new._

_._

_Please,_ begs an angel, as his kindred name him Accursed for his negligence.  _How could I have stopped_   _him from entering?_

 _Oh child,_ Fate laughs, unseen and unheard,  _The Serpent was always going to scar this world._

Already the land is broken, and when he walks through the Garden, Heaven hears the footsteps of Death.

.

 _Why do we stay?_ Death asks one day, as Fate twines her hair around two golden threads.

 _Remember the story, brother,_ she replies,  _A story of a broken boy and his golden brother. I think you'll like it._

_._

_He is a fool,_ Death rages.  _He will never learn and it will be his downfall._

Fate intercepts his furious pacing.  _Come, brother. Leave War and his machinations. I have a child you will find much more interesting._

At a small house in Kansas, a young boy holds his baby brother and stares at a house coated in flames.

.

The Horseman fall, the angels rage, and Fate laughs when Lucifer attempts to possess Sam Winchester.

 _Sam's soul,_ the child had asked him, so wonderfully shattered,  _Get him out._

Fate was right, Death thinks as he watches Dean struggle to condemn a dying girl to eternity.

War had never struggled, had been too sure of himself to truly learn. Too confident. Too  _whole_.

.

 _You told us,_ the angels accuse, self-righteous and arrogant,  _You told us you had written the story of the Sword and the Morning Star. Yet the Morning Star lies in the Cage with Michael and all our plans were for nothing._

 _Fools,_ answers Fate and leaves them to the chaos of heaven.

Had they possessed the humility to ask, she would have told them. Such foolishness.

To think that Sword belonged to Michael.  
To think that simply because  _they_ named him so, Lucifer was the true Morning Star.  
To think that the story she had written before the Sun burned the sky could ever belong to them.

 _Come, sister,_ Death says and together they melt into the darkness to watch the Winchesters.


	86. I Grow Older and Older

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12th in the Old Ones 'Verse

History repeats.

Nothing truer has ever been spoken.

Death is old, older than angels, older than memory, maybe older than God (but that was long ago and its not worth the effort of remembering) and there is nothing new under this sun or any that rose and set before it.

Life is the same wherever he reaps, the same questions, the same people.

"My destiny demands that I fight Michael," pouts the insignificant brat who dares to bind  _him_ , the pale rider.

Emotion is almost gone, now. (He felt everything there was to feel centuries ago) But for this angel, for this whining arrogant mass of skin, blood, and flimsy grace, he feels nothing but withering contempt. He is Oldest, unfathomable, and Fate is not some spindly librarian with a book and a tally to fill.

"My fate," says the child, bandying about his sister's name as if it was the pass code into the fabric of reality and simply saying her name would make it true.

"My destiny," the self-proclaimed "Morning Star" repeats, and in the back of his mind Death can his sister laughing and, why. Why must everything be so  _old,_ so ordinary, done and said a thousand times before. He could shake off the flimsy strands of the spell that binds him (it is not the first time he has been bound, nor will it be the last), but he can feel a sub-current in the wind.

Something resting in the air, tasting of rebellion and brothers. Something not new (nothing is  _new_ ), but perhaps something  _fresh_.

 _Oh brother,_ Fate murmurs in the dark,  _You are going to enjoy this._


End file.
